


Kurupira

by SheilaPaulson



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 23:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheilaPaulson/pseuds/SheilaPaulson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Jim deals with the threat of a pipe bomber, the legend of a cursed statue causes major trouble for Blair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kurupira

The statue was a little gnome of a man, walking, but his feet pointed backward. Blair weighed it in his hand, very carefully because he knew how rare and valuable it was. Rainier's anthropology department had been lucky to score the travelling exhibition of Tupinambas statuary. 

Blair couldn't help being fascinated by it all, especially since the Tupinambas' religion had involved shamanism. Ever since that moment when the dying Incacha had gripped Blair's arm and passed the shaman responsibility for Jim to him, he'd studied everything he could find about the subject. It wasn't a responsibility to be shrugged off, not when Jim's life might depend on his ability to do what was needed—to do the right thing—in a crisis. 

Blair Sandburg, shaman. The title carried with it the hint of mystical powers, but he wasn't sure he could ever go there, or hadn't been at first. Yet after Incacha's death, he'd found the way to help Jim reclaim his senses. He'd even gone through ritual death at the fountain not that long ago. No. Don't go there. The moment when jaguar and wolf had blended in a jungle far from Rainier, far from "reality", burned in his memory. Jim had said he wasn't ready to go there, and even though Blair had been fascinated by the process, he'd been content to let it go. 

Now, several weeks after the return from wherever that had been, given a clean bill of health by his doctor, he was back at the university for the summer session, just in time for the Tupinambas exhibit. The powers that be had granted him permission to use a couple of the items in one of his lectures, and security guards had delivered them to the classroom and waited to take them back. The way his students had ogled the guards and then turned their attention to the artefacts proved he could hold their attention.

"The Tupinambas believed in ghosts, demons, and spirits," he said, "evil genii who were present at the start of creation. They were different from men, but mortal. They just lived a lot longer than we did." He displayed the statue of the backward-footed gnome. "This is Kurupira, a forest sprite. Even though the tribes made offerings to him, he was ill-disposed to humans, and it wasn't exactly a good sign if the tribesmen encountered him while hunting game." 

"But he wasn't real," Karen Silcott said from her front row seat. 

She always sat there so she could ogle Blair, and it made him slightly uncomfortable. One time, after a campus showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark, she had blinked at him to reveal the words 'love' and 'you', one on each eyelid just like the student in Indiana Jones's classroom. She never stalked him outside of class, but she sat there at each lecture, soaking up his words as if he were the latest rock star. He could imagine Jim's reaction if he heard about it.

"No, it wasn't real; but remember, primitive tribes didn't understand the laws of nature, of physics, or the way the universe worked. They wanted explanations and didn't know the real ones, so they invented them. Solar eclipses had all kinds of stories invented about them. Tribes would perform sacrifices to make sure the harvest would be good, that spring would come again, that game would be plentiful. The Tupinambas chose to believe in spirits and demons. They believed they were constantly surrounded by a multitude of spirits who inhabited their lands and their homes."

"Who ya gonna call?" snickered Dave Hammer from the back of the classroom, and everybody laughed.

"Good one, Dave. Since the Tupinambas weren't lucky enough to be able to call the Ghostbusters, they propitiated the spirits with sacrifices. And since they practised ritual cannibalism anyway, that fit in with their religious beliefs. To our eyes, they would have been appallingly bloodthirsty. Captives from other tribes were killed and eaten. A captive might even be given a wife and allowed to live for a time, but then he would be eaten. They even ate the babies of captive women."

"That's horrible," whispered Mary Ellis, eyes huge with horror.

"We find it horrible," Blair agreed. "But it was the way they lived. It's easy to look down on the customs and beliefs of a people from this end of history. They didn't have our enlightenment. And when you think about it, future generations might look down on some of our customs and beliefs and shake their heads with horror at our ignorance."

He could tell that clicked with some of the brighter students. He loved it when he actually could reach them. The little wheels were going behind several pairs of eyes. 

He let the thought linger a second, then he set Kurupira down on the desk. "This particular statue is reputed to have a curse on it," he said with a grin to indicate that they were modern and sophisticated and didn't buy curses.

"What kind of curse?" Dave asked at once, leaning forward with interest. Dave was the class clown, but he was also amazingly bright. "Funny they'd let you handle it if it was cursed. Did anybody ever do that and find himself dead the next morning, an expression of utter horror on his face?"

Mary Ellis shivered, but most of the students in the class leaned forward, fascinated. They'd be just the same if they drove past a horrible accident. Blair suspected that element of human nature was what gave so much success to tabloid newspapers and the notoriety of celebrities. There might even be a paper in figuring out what primitive instinct prompted people to feel a fascination at the weird, the strange, the grotesque, the scandalous.

"Well, not that I ever heard," he said and threw the class a little grin. "You think I'd be touching it if it killed off all its handlers?"

"He'd have left it to us," one of the security guys muttered under his breath.

That made the class laugh, but Blair held up his hand. "While there's an element of truth in a lot of myths, they're also open to interpretation. Do we really believe in the Twelve Labours of Hercules, for instance? Or that Paul Bunyan really had a blue ox? Lots of myths are exaggerations; others are deliberate stories encouraged by the powers that be for purposes of domination. As for tales like the cursed statue, well, it's like the Curse of King Tut's tomb. You know the old line. 'Death will come on swift wings to he who disturbs my resting place.' Well, Howard Carter, who found Tutankhamen's resting place, didn't die for nearly two decades after the tomb's discovery. That's a long time to wait for a curse to strike."

"What kind of things does this curse do?" Jerry Otterbach asked from the seat closest to the door. Just getting him to speak up in class when his entire raison d'être seemed to be departing as quickly as possible was a miracle.

Blair grinned. "Interested, Jerry?"

"Well, yeah, Dr. Sandburg."

"I'm not a doctor yet, Jerry, but it still sounds good." He struck a pose, and the students smiled. 

"The curse. Well, let's see. If someone handled it, the first thing that would happen is that he'd feel like someone was following him. But when he'd look for tracks, they'd be going in the other direction."

Karen pointed at the statue. "No wonder with those backward feet."

"Good point. That was how they'd figure it was Kurupira after them." A good ghost story always held the students' attention. 

"One of the things the Tupinambas did was to bury their captives to the waist, then they'd throw darts at his head."

Fascination warred with horror and the gross-out factor in some of the students' faces. He hesitated. "They supposedly found a guy who'd handled the statue buried up to here in the ground." He traced a line mid-chest. "He had some weird cuts on his face, and he insisted a guy with backward feet had done it to him."

"Probably he messed with somebody's girlfriend, and the guy got revenge," Dave offered.

"Or somebody's sister, and her brothers did," Nancy Kellogg threw in. "What else happened, Professor?"

"People would feel like they were being watched. Things they'd just had in their hands would disappear. They'd set them down, and when they'd look, they'd be gone. They'd hear spooky voices when they tried to sleep that nobody else admitted to hearing. Stones would come flying out of the trees and just miss them. One guy said he saw fire demons." 

Don't go there, Blair. Too much like the golden fire people. That gave him a new idea. "Of course some of the weird stuff could be drug-induced. We've talked about peyote and substances like that in earlier classes. Voluntary use of drugs to induce visions. If you expected something weird to go down, it generally would. You'd be psyched up for it, and the drugs would do the rest. Sometimes people can psych themselves up like that without taking anything stronger than an aspirin."

"So when's the last time anybody died of the curse?" Jerry persisted.

Blair frowned. "I'm not sure anybody actually died of it. Just had bad luck. A death in proximity to the statue didn't have to mean anything. Nobody was ever found clutching it, eyes full of terror. No bursts of fire ever came out of it to slay unbelievers. Just having it in the classroom won't curse anybody."

As the period ended, he smiled. "Read chapter 12 of Tyler, and I still need papers from Steve and Dana. If you're having a problem with them, I'll be in my office from two to three. Jake? You can have Kurupira back now."

The security guard came forward to retrieve the artefact, securing it in a padded box for transport. The second guard, who hadn't waited in the classroom, appeared in the door as the students flowed out. 

Dave hung back to try for one close-up look at Kurupira, but Jake sealed the box, and the student heaved a disappointed sigh.

"Come to the exhibition, Dave," Blair suggested as he shoved his books into his backpack. "Bring your girlfriend. You can always tell her about the curse, and then you'll have to protect her all the way home."

Dave winked. "I do that already. Big tough me. See you Monday." He slung his weighted backpack over one shoulder and hurried off to his next class.

Blair didn't have any more classes that day, so he dumped his books in his office and took off to join Jim at Major Crime. He'd have time to meet with Jim before his office hours started at two.

 

*****

 

"Sorry, Chief, I'm not gonna be able to go to your shindig tonight," Jim told Blair the following noon when they met for lunch at a restaurant near the precinct. Blair liked the place because he could get healthy food there, and Jim liked their barbecued ribs. The waitress had just taken their order and vanished in the direction of the kitchen when Jim sprang his bad news.

He looked like he was genuinely regretful. The black-tie grand opening of the Tupinambas exhibit at Rainier would hardly be his gig, but he'd agreed to come. It wasn't even that the possibility the Brazilian tribe had possessed sentinels that appealed to him. Shortly after the fountain, Jim had shown himself a little more willing to get into Sandburg's interests, so much so that it almost seemed over the top. Now that Blair had been released from follow-up medical exams to make sure he didn't come down with pneumonia or other lung-related problems, Jim would probably revert to normal, and it might be that the very thought of a formal evening among the wealthy and privileged of Cascade didn't appeal to him. Blair had tickets only because he was more involved with the South American tribes than a lot of other people in the Anthro department—and because he'd won a pair of the ten free tickets allotted to the non-tenured professors and teaching fellows. He'd offered his extra ticket to Jim, who had grimaced, tightened the muscles of his jaw, and agreed to go.

"What's up, Jim? Too much academia for you?" Blair teased. He was disappointed, partly because it was probably too late to get a date, and his current lady friend, Lynette, another Anthro teaching fellow, had a family affair planned for tonight and couldn't go "Come on, Sandburg, I probably know plenty about Anthropology just by osmosis."

"And by living with the Chopec." 

"That, too. But there's a stakeout tonight. We got an anonymous tip about the pipe bomber, and Taggert and I will take the six to midnight shift."

The pipe bomber had sent a flurry of panic through Cascade over the past month. The first pipe bomb had been attached to a trip wire on a bike trail, and a woman biker had suffered compound fractures of both legs when it had detonated and pitched her through the air to crash against a fallen log. The second pipe bomb had been noticed by a curious kid as he and his father had been about to climb into their truck, and the police had it to study. Pipe bombs weren't hard to make—you could find detailed instructions on the Internet—but they could be deadly. The third bomb proved that. It had gone off under an old Buick and killed an elderly couple on their way home from church.

CPD had been unable to find a connection between any of the pipe bomb's victims or near victims. They didn't know each other, they lived in different parts of town, they didn't work together, belong to the same church, the same political party, shop at the same stores. The one thing that tied the bombings together was the fact that every one of them had happened on a Sunday morning, once a week for the past three weeks.

The waitress returned, plopped glasses of water on the table without spilling so much as a drop, ogled Jim for a second, and whisked away again. Jim didn't appear to notice. He was frowning.

"If the bomber follows his pattern, we can expect the next pipe bomb tomorrow morning, Sandburg. We know he could have planted the bike trail bomb during the night, and ditto with the Kelseys' truck bomb, but the Kilgores' bomb had to have been planted while they were in church, in broad daylight. He might be getting bolder."

"Do you think he's going to strike again?" Blair asked.

"Oh, yeah. I think he's getting off on it, revelling in the power it gives him. He's not gonna stop now."

"Terrorist?" Blair frowned. "Do you think he's got some agenda we just haven't figured out yet?"

"I swear, Sandburg, if there's a connection between Blaine, the Kelseys, and the Kilgores, we haven't been able to pin it down. I think they're utterly random. He drives around, finds a likely place, and boom." Absently, he sipped his water.

"Maybe only one of them was his target, and he used the others to throw the police off," Blair suggested.

"We did think of that, Chief," Jim replied ponderously. "But the problem then becomes whether or not he's actually taken out his actual victim or if that is still to come. Even if he has, he might set a few more afterwards to throw us off the track. We're looking into the backgrounds of the victims, to see if there's anything to suggest that somebody might want to kill them."

"So what's the tip?" Blair glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. Jim's picture had been in the paper more than once, and it was possible the bomber would recognize him. No one seemed to be paying the slightest attention to them.

"That he might be assembling his bombs at a certain place in the warehouse district. So Taggert and I are taking the first watch. We've got a search warrant for the building in question, and we've already been through it. We didn't find anything, but maybe we'll see more tonight. Joel didn't find any bomb supplies or evidence that the pipe bombs had been made there, and he ought to know, but we can't pass up the chance that he'll bring everything with him and take it away again afterward."

"And it gets you out of wearing a tux," Blair said lightly. Jim took violence like this personally. As the Sentinel of the Great City, his protective urges were strong. The random killing of innocents had to bug him like crazy. He wanted to lighten his partner's mood if he could.

"Come on, Sandburg, I look great in a monkey suit."

"Betcha the waitress would think so."

Jim grimaced at him. "So listen up, Sandburg. When you come out of the exhibit tonight, I want you to make sure you check under your car."

"Yes, Mommy. Would you like me to look both ways when I cross the street, too?" 

When Jim rolled a baleful eye at him, Blair grinned. "At least I don't zone in the middle of the street like some people I could name."

Jim's grimace intensified. "Rub it in, Sandburg."

"You're always doing the blessed protector thing. Maybe that means I've been your blessed protector from the day you came to see me at the university."

"Whatever. Just make sure you check under your car whenever you get into it until we catch this guy." Jim's jaw tightened. He was really serious about it. 

"I have been," Blair admitted. "And the cars around where I'm parked, too." He'd gone with Jim to question the Kilgores' son and daughter-in-law, and it had proven a very painful interview. He could still remember Jason Kilgore's reddened eyes and clenched fists and the way his wife had hovered around him, crying openly. Random violence sucked.

"You keep doing that, Sandburg, and you make sure you spread the word."

*****

Blair did spread the word at the opening, not to every single person there, but to the people he talked to. The odds were no one would find a car bomb tonight; if the bomber stuck to his pattern, the bomb wouldn't go off until tomorrow morning. But the guy had varied his pattern by planting the Kilgore bomb in broad daylight. He might do this week's early. So Blair spread the word to a few people during the get together.

"What are you up to, Sandburg?" That was Chancellor Edwards, bearing down on him like a steamroller, assuming steamrollers came in the female persuasion. "Your unfortunate association with that police officer hasn't made you one, although you spend more time with them than I find healthy, especially for a man whose dissertation should have been ready months ago."

"It's nearly ready," Blair said quickly and defensively. Never mind that the minute he typed the final words into his laptop he had to face the fact that it would blow Jim's cover royally. It would take a lot of work to keep Jim's name out of it and set it up so that no one would guess. He wasn't even sure he could do it. Sometimes at night he'd lay awake and wonder what he was going to do about it. But no way would he tell Edwards anything about that. "And all I'm doing is making sure people check under their cars. It would look crummy for the university if someone died from a car bomb at an event like this. The bomber might like it."

"I have considered that," the chancellor snapped. "We have extra security in the parking lot to make sure no one can plant a pipe bomb. The Mayor is here, Sandburg. Important people have come to the showing. Do you honestly believe we would take chances?"

Sandburg wanted to point out that the last bomb had been planted on a public street in broad daylight, but he figured the less he said at this point, the better. "Sorry," he muttered. He still meant to check under his car. Unless they ringed the parking lot with security guards, somebody could still sneak in. The bomber might find tonight's target impossible to resist. All the elite of Cascade had come. They stood around gazing at the artefacts, but their real interest was to be at the right place, where they could pose for the press. Edwards had to be hoping for major donations to fund the Anthro department tonight.

"Behave, Sandburg," she said sternly and hurried off to speak to one of the city councilmen.

"I heard what she said, young man." The unexpected voice caught him in mid-sip of the high-priced champagne the department had sprung for. The drink nearly went down the wrong way when he realized he was looking at none other than the Mayor. "Don't let her hold you back. We can't allow these pipe bombings to continue. Someone told me you are an observer with the police department. Studying closed societies, is it? Well, you keep right on reminding people to check their cars. We've had it on TV as often as we could, but some people never think crime can strike them."

"I told Jim, uh, that's Detective Ellison, that I'd look under my car and all the cars around me," Blair admitted. Whoa, imagine him, Blair Sandburg, chatting with the mayor.

"Excellent. We have to stop this madman."

"Do you think he's crazy, sir?"

"He may be. He may also be very shrewd. I don't like the thought of a terrorist element in my city, but we have to consider that possibility, too. I know the police haven't found a link between the victims, but there is one link—they're all American citizens, good, decent people."

Voters, Blair thought cynically, but he could also sense the Mayor's sincerity. "Maybe it's someone trying to hide one particular murder in the middle of others," he said.

"The police commissioner shared that possibility with me. I know the police are working hard on this. I don't want to wake up tomorrow to find we've lost another citizen. The bomber may plant his next bomb under a family car. Children…." He frowned. "I'm thinking of my own grandchildren, of course, but no one deserves to die from random violence. You tell your Detective Ellison to keep trying. I'm going to go after Chancellor Edwards and let her know I expect her to announce a reminder that everyone check their cars when they depart tonight. Good work, son." He shook Blair's hand and hurried off.

Blair stood smiling after him. It might not make the chancellor warm to him, but vindication always felt good. He took the last sip of his champagne and deposited the empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter.

The statue of Kurupira stood near him on a stand, roped off to keep the public from getting too close. A gorgeous woman in a form-revealing black number stood gazing at the ugly little statue. Mentally, Blair pushed back his sleeves and approached her. "Kurupira," he explained. "A gnome of the forest."

She looked down at him—she was at least two inches taller than he was, but that was probably due to the spike heels she wore. "It's ugly," she said. "But still curiously appealing. Do you know about it?"

"I teach Anthropology here. I'm Blair Sandburg."

"Sharon McRae. I'm with the Cascade Times. Can you give me some background about this exhibit, Mr. Sandburg?"

"Blair," he said quickly. "What do you want to know?"

*****

Blair patted the pocket that held Sharon's phone number. She'd gone off with her photographer after the interview with him, but she'd given him her card. "Look for tomorrow's article," she'd told him. "You gave me some helpful information."

Which probably meant he'd see his name in the paper. That ought to rile Edwards still further. But Blair probably did know as much about the Tupinambas as anyone else in the department, well, except for Eli Stoddard, but Blair's mentor was actually in Brazil at the moment and unavailable for interviews. Blair would have to save the article and send a copy to his mother. Naomi might not understand anthropology, but she'd love seeing her baby boy's name in print.

Blair left soon after Sharon did. He'd spent part of his time worrying about Jim on the stakeout. Jim rarely zoned any more, and Blair couldn't be with him every minute to prevent it. Joel Taggert was a great guy, and Blair liked and trusted him, but he couldn't help being concerned. Could he risk calling Jim to make sure he was all right? No, better not risk it. The sound of the cell phone ringing might alert the bomber. He couldn't take the chance that Jim hadn't adjusted the ringer.

No one else seemed to be moving in the parking lot. Off at the street entrance, he could see a couple of campus security guards standing together under a streetlight, but they were too far away for Blair to see their faces. A tall black man, a woman.

Footfalls sounded behind him. Half expecting another exhibition visitor, Blair glanced over his shoulder.

No one was there.

His first thought was the bomber. He'd seen Blair start to turn and crouched down behind a car. Blair stiffened. He took a few cautious steps. At first he heard nothing, then he heard the footsteps again. Quickly Blair whirled.

Again no one. But he could still hear the footsteps. They echoed out for a few more steps and halted.

Slowly he turned, looking in all directions. He could holler at the security guys, but what could he say? "I heard someone walking." Put like that, it sounded silly.

He could see the Volvo. Quickly he hurried in that direction. The footsteps started up again as soon as he moved.

He thrust the key into the lock, prepared to jump into the car and lock the door, in case the footsteps were those of a mugger. But then he remembered the bomber. A glance in all directions revealed no one, so he went down on his knees to check under the car. He'd attached one of those keychain flashlights before he set off, so he flicked it on and made sure nothing suspicious had been placed beneath his car.

While he was down there, he looked around to see if he could see the feet of the person who had been trailing him.

There. A few cars over. Feet, definitely, but weird. They pointed the wrong way on bare legs. Sandals gave the feet definition, but they were rough, homemade. Bare brown legs, muscular legs. Just for an instant, the figure shifted between vehicles and granted him a higher glimpse. No time to make out more than a shadowy hooded figure before it vanished behind an SUV, but the feet and the hood faced different directions. Kurupira.

No, that was stupid. He had to be imagining it.

"Blair Sandburg."

The voice was an eerie whisper, a shimmer of sound on the night air, so strange and alien he wasn't sure he heard it or if it were simply his weird imagination. The curse. Victims had heard spooky voices. He heard himself rattling off information about the curse in a casual, amused voice only yesterday. The curse couldn't be real.

"You have defiled my statue." Weird accent to the voice, yet it was fluent in English. He had to be imagining all this. It was nuts.

He was so out of here.

Blair jumped up, flung open the Volvo door. As he moved something whooshed out of the night and sailed past his head. It missed him by more than a foot, but that was close enough for him to get a very good look at the feather-decorated spear.

He threw himself into the car, fumbled with the key before he could stick it in the ignition, and started the car. No one jumped him. No one moved at all as he peeled out of his parking place and gunned the Volvo over to the place where the security guards were standing.

"Somebody threw a spear at me."

"Say what?" Blair recognized Isaac Washington, part-time security guard, full-time linebacker on Rainier's football team. The guy was twice as broad as Blair and eight inches taller.

His partner for the night, Stella Todd, was tall, too, although nowhere near Washington's 6'4". "Are you sure?" she asked. "You're Professor Sandburg, aren't you?"

"Not a professor yet," he said. "Never mind. I heard somebody following me, and then they threw a spear at me. It went right past my head."

"I didn't see anybody," Isaac admitted. His shaved head glistened in the light of the streetlight.

"I saw Mr. Sandburg," Stella admitted. "I saw him kneel down beside the car and thought he was probably making sure he didn't have a pipe bomb."

"I was," Blair agreed. "But somebody's out there throwing spears."

"Let's go look for the spear," Isaac agreed. He measured his height against Blair's Volvo and decided it was doable, so they all crowded into the car and went looking for the spear. No one moved in the parking lot except for some distant exhibition goers heading for their cars.

Even though Isaac called in a report and additional security arrived on the scene along with a few CPD patrol cars, nothing else happened. The spear Blair had seen had vanished as if it had never existed.

"A little too much bubbly?" one of the patrol car guys asked.

"One glass," Blair admitted. "But it was over an hour ago. I saw the spear. I felt the wind of its passage. It missed me by no more than a foot. I heard it hit something over there."

Everybody trekked in that direction. The cops radiated scepticism. If the spear thrower was still here, he had chosen to lie low. People leaving the exhibition ogled the police, and every one of them dutifully checked his car for pipe bombs. The security guards helped them.

The spear was gone. But one of the squad car guys found a long scratch across the hood of the car in the exact line of the spear's potential trajectory. Probably no way of telling if it were a recent scratch or not, and the car in question was a battered one, probably a student's car, held together on a budget.

Blair said nothing about the voice that had whispered his name, the strange backward feet he'd seen when he knelt to peer under the Volvo. That was too weird. One glass of high-priced champagne couldn't have made him imagine it. He hadn't been thinking of Tupinamba curses when he'd heard the footsteps. He'd thought of pipe bombers and muggers. The Kurupira curse wasn't real. It couldn't be.

But then how could he explain those backward feet, those muscular bare legs? There had been nothing in the curse about spears, had there? He couldn't remember a mention. But there had been a couple of spears as part of the exhibition. Only one of them had been on display.

He pointed that out to the police, and they all trekked over to the exhibition building. Fortunately Chancellor Edwards wasn't there, but the guards let the police in. The spear in the exhibition stood mounted right where it had been.

They found the second spear locked up in the secure room where the rest of the artefacts had been secured. When a police officer picked it up, it was possible to see the faint marking in the dust where it lay that proved it hadn't been touched. But the feathers that adorned it reminded Blair of the spear that had whizzed past his head.

Finding the spear unmoved shot Blair's credibility all to hell. "Well, Sandburg, at least nobody tried to spear you with an ancient weapon," Officer Chang told him with a hearty clap on the shoulder.

"A replica, then?" Blair asked. "I know what I saw. I wasn't drunk, and I sure wasn't thinking about spears when I heard someone following me."

"We'll be on the lookout for trouble," Isaac said. "It could be a prank, even a publicity stunt to promote the exhibition."

Everybody stared at Blair. "No, not me. I wouldn't do anything like that. Ask anybody. Ask Jim Ellison. He'll tell you."

"He's right, Brian," Chang's partner said to him. "He rides with Ellison, like an observer or something. I've seen him."

"You're sure there was somebody following you?" Chang persisted.

"I heard the footsteps. When I looked, no one was there. Once I'd start moving, I'd hear them again."

"Maybe somebody wanted to scare you," the officer said. "We'll file a report, and we'll make sure we have a presence here until everybody's gone home from this exhibition."

Blair wasn't sure why anybody would want to scare him. No way could it be the curse. No way.

But mystical things were real. Blair was alive today because of something that couldn't be explained by rational science. Jim had brought him back from the dead, merged their spirit animals to save him when he'd drowned at the fountain. Jim had spirit visions, and Blair had gone through a few himself. Research into the functions of a shaman had taken him deeper into meditation than he'd achieved before, opened new doorways for him. However, if he started spouting what everybody here would consider New Age claptrap, he'd lose all credibility.

How much credibility would he have if he talked about a cursed statue, when he didn't even want to believe it himself?

*****

He was still up when Jim came home around one, his face tight with weariness and frustration. No sign of zoning. But a lot of tension when he looked at Blair. "What the hell happened at the University, Sandburg?"

"Oh. You heard about that?"

"Of course I heard about that. Dispatch radioed me about it, once they knew it involved you. Somebody threw a spear at you?"

Blair heaved a mental sigh. "Well, yeah, but it missed me by a mile. Well, by a foot, anyway."

"You aren't hurt?" Jim looked him up and down, concentrated on him, probably listening to his heartbeat and pulse rate. No need of a stethoscope while Jim was around. He could render a guy's convalescence hideous with the sneaky sentinel ability to check up on Blair without even being in the room. In a way, it was kind of nice, having somebody who cared enough to check up on him like that. But tonight, he stood there, checking, and Blair had the uneasy feeling this time Jim was checking for any evidence that Blair had faked it all.

"No, I'm not hurt, and, yes, it really happened. Nobody believed me even though we found a scrape in a car hood that could have been caused by the spear hitting it. And I… saw something, Jim."

Ellison stared at him through narrowed eyes. "Out with it, Chief. What's this really about?"

Forgotten was the gorgeous Sharon and the conversation with the Mayor. All Blair could see was those weird feet and legs; all he could hear was the voice telling him he had defiled the statue. "I don't suppose you'd buy a cursed statue?"

Jim's face tightened. In spite of his own forays into the mystical—or maybe even because of them—Jim tended to scoff at such claims. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, yesterday I got to take one of the statues from the exhibit to my class about ancient tribal customs. The statue supposedly has a curse on it."

"Oh, give me a break, Sandburg. You're telling me because you touched this statue, somebody's throwing spears at you? What a crock…." He took a closer look at Blair. "What else?"

"Well, the statue was of a character named Kurupira. It has its feet on backwards, and it walks through the woods like that. It doesn't like human beings. The person who is cursed will hear someone following him, then he'll hear voices in the night. Stones would fly through the air at him. He'd see fire demons." He shuddered. "I was kind of hoping I could skip that part. I've seen too many fire people already."

"Sandburg, are you saying you had a flashback to the Golden?" Jim slapped a hand against his forehead to test for fever.

Blair batted the hand away, even though he appreciated the concern. "No, it wasn't a flashback, Jim, and I didn't see any golden fire people." He let out an inaudible—to himself—sigh of relief, but, of course, Jim heard it. He let his hand rest on Blair's shoulder for a second.

"What else?" he persisted.

"Well, even though I heard footsteps, I still checked under the Volvo for pipe bombs. When I was down there, I could see under other cars, and I saw…."

"What?" Jim prodded. "Come on, Chief, give."

"Well, I saw these feet in sandals—and they were backward, Jim. The way the leg swelled—you know, the calf? Well, it went the wrong way." He avoided Jim's eyes. "I hadn't even given the curse a thought until then, Jim. I wasn't thinking about tribal curses or hexed statues. I was thinking about the pipe bomber, or maybe a mugger. But those backward feet—God, Jim, what could it be but Kurupira?"

"It's not Kurupira, Sandburg. You honestly believe a primitive tribal god is hanging out in the parking lot at Rainier, throwing spears at you? Give me a break."

"I saw it, Jim. I saw the spear. I heard it whistle through the air. I felt it go past me. I didn't imagine it. I'm not on anything, and I only had one glass of champagne. It happened." He stood there as tall as he could make himself and met Jim's gaze head on. "I'm not lying to you, Jim, and I didn't imagine it."

Jim looked at him for a long time. If he didn't trust Blair not to feed him a cock-and-bull story after all this time…. But then Jim dropped his hands on Blair's shoulders. "I believe you think you saw it, Sandburg. I don't believe it was an ancient Brazilian god, though. Maybe it was a publicity stunt or a prank."

"Some prank. I nearly got impaled by a spear. Yeah, that'd be great publicity."

"Anybody who'd pull a stunt like that wouldn't be thinking."

"No, but come on, Jim. We know weird things can happen. I'm alive because of something most people wouldn't believe for a second. How can we write this off? I want to write it off as much as you do. You think I want to believe there could be anything to an ancient curse? But I saw those feet. They looked so weird, Jim."

"The light was bad, you were kneeling looking under a car. Could have been the angle."

"The angle wouldn't have allowed for sandals, Jim."

"It's June. I hate to break it to you, Chief, but people wear sandals in the summer. They wear shorts. It was pretty warm today."

"Don't believe me then. But someone threw a spear at me. Just because we didn't find it doesn't mean anything except that whoever threw it retrieved it when I went for the security guards. They were way over by the exit. They might not have seen the guy, not if he kept low."

"Or invisible?"

Blair felt his muscles tighten. "Ji-im…."

"What do you expect me to say, Sandburg? Whoever threw the spear at you was human. I can't buy anything else. I think whoever it was grabbed the spear and took off out of there before you could get the security people over to the site. 

"We'll talk about it in the morning. Get some sleep."

Blair didn't push it. All he would do would be to alienate Jim, whose tolerance for mystical things was never high. Instead he asked, "What about the stakeout? Anything?"

The muscles that bunched in Jim's jaw explained part of his ready temper. "Total waste of time," he growled. "Nobody came near the place all night. In a few hours, we'll have another bomb going off, and who knows who'll be hurt or killed this time around?! And we don't have one goddamned lead."

Blair let the mysterious spear thrower go. "You'll figure it out, Jim."

"Yeah, but it might not be in time to prevent another death." He stomped up the stairs to his bedroom.

Blair retreated to his own bedroom, frustration warring with disappointment. Even though he knew Jim fought with all his strength to resist bizarre and mystical concepts, it still hurt not to be believed. 

Jim could be right that it was a publicity stunt, but not one the University would appreciate. Chancellor Edwards already disliked Blair, resented his time spent with Jim. She would come down on him with hobnail boots if there was too much publicity about Tupinamba spears being flung around one of the parking lots. Such an event might draw more people to the exhibit, but they wouldn't be the kind of people she would appreciate. His name would be mud, especially since Sharon would probably quote him in her article and make him look like a real expert.

That didn't bother him nearly as much as Jim's reaction, though. He wasn't a flake, a neo-hippie punk with wild delusions. Jim ought to know by now that he wouldn't make up a story. Jim did know it. It was Blair's possible interpretation he didn't like.

Blair didn't like it, either. Ancient curses arose out of a more gullible age. If the incident hadn't happened so soon after the fountain, Blair could have laughed it off more easily; well, not laughed off the spear, but the possibility that the curse was real. That weird foot and leg he'd seen—the little of it that had shown beneath a car—had been too much like Kurupira to dismiss. But Jim had dismissed it.

Blair heaved a sigh. He was expecting too much. There were still too many Alex-induced tensions floating around. Jim had welcomed him back to the loft, but the memory of Jim and Alex on that beach sometimes glared vividly in his mind. She had killed him, and Jim had…. He pushed the thought away. That was a sentinel thing; Jim had been unable to control it. Blair knew that. He had made peace with it… well, mostly.

Jim wasn't under a weird sentinel imperative now. Jim could control his behaviour, his attitudes, just fine. But the scepticism that had flared large in his face proved he didn't buy Blair's story. Blair wanted it to be a hoax, a prank, although pranksters with spears weren't exactly the kind of guys he wanted hoaxing him. Had he imagined that leg? The angle hadn't been great, nor the lighting good. Maybe the spear had planted the idea of Kurupira in his mind. No, he'd seen that backward foot first, then the spear.

It was real, Jim. I don't understand it, but what I saw was real. Why don't you believe me?

*****

"Blair Sandburg. You have defiled my statue."

The insidious voice wove its way through Blair's dream and shook him into wakefulness in the darkness, where he lay staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. There it was again, not part of the dream, part of reality. He could hear it, hear the words with that strange, unnatural accent, the hollow echo of them, right here in his bedroom.

"You will die."

It was close. He could hear it, so close. Cautiously, he turned his head, checking out the room. Nothing moved in the shadows, nothing lurked waiting to pounce. No spears soared out of the darkness. Only that voice, that eerie voice, disturbed the night. "Blair Sandburg. Your fate will befall you soon. You will die."

"Get down, Sandburg!" Jim burst into the room clad only in his shorts, Sig Sauer in his hands. He was hyper-alert, his senses focussed, homed in on the intrusive words.

Mysterious midnight voices couldn't get past a sentinel. Jim had heard it, too. Jim had come. Now he stood there in the doorway in full protective mode as Blair slithered off the futon to the floor. Letting go of his gun with one hand, Jim flipped on the light switch. Nothing. Not a trace of anyone there. The voice had stopped the second Jim yelled. It didn't repeat its deadly threat.

Could an ancient god be afraid of a gun?

Jim strode across the room, yanked back the curtain, and stared out into the night. Blair joined him, shuddering at the thought that someone might have stood out there on the fire escape, watching him while he slept. But there was no one on the fire escape, and no one hastily hurrying down to the ground level. Jim narrowed his focus, listening, his brow furrowed, his face tight. Then he turned away and started pawing through the books and papers stacked on Blair's desk.

"You think Kurupira is hiding there, Jim?" Blair asked. It took an effort to steady his voice. The danger seemed to have passed. He pushed himself up and raked his hands through his tangled hair. "You heard it, didn't you?"

"I heard it. I don't know what it was, but it was real."

"Kurupira," Blair insisted. He wasn't sure why he did that; probably because Jim was so sceptical. He didn't want to believe in a tribal curse. He'd dismissed Blair's theory out of hand, and now Blair had vindication. Well, not of the likelihood of the Tupinambas spirit, but that something stalked him. He'd been amused about it in class as he talked about the so-called Curse of Tutankhamen. Had his very scepticism called the curse down on him? Jim might not believe in curses, but he believed in threats. The very lines of his body suggested that nobody better mess with his Guide. 

It didn't entirely soothe away Blair's earlier disappointment, but it helped.

"Hidden tape recorder," Jim argued. He should have looked silly, standing there barefoot in his shorts, the gun in hand, but he didn't. "It's a set-up, Sandburg."

They searched the room together, but no mysterious tape recorder appeared. "You'd know if somebody had been in the loft, Jim," Blair argued. "You'd have picked up something in the air, an unfamiliar scent, something like that."

"I wasn't focussing on that when I got home, Sandburg. You looked so freaked I focussed on you instead of any possible invaders." He closed his eyes, concentrated. "Don't let me zone."

"You won't zone," Blair said promptly, but he rested his hand on Jim's forearm, prepared to shake him out of it if he did. 

Jim didn't. After a few moments, he blinked, opened his eyes, and shook his head. "No. Nothing stands out. But all that means is that someone could have come in here hours earlier who wasn't wearing any distinctive aftershave or cologne. The windows have been open all day, and any unusual scents could have dissipated. Or—" He broke off sharply and headed out for his bedroom.

"What, Jim?"

"Maybe they were on the roof. Dangling a tape player down on a cord outside your window?" He pounded up the stairs to his room to dress. Blair threw on jeans and a shirt, and emerged from his room just as Jim raced down again in jeans and shoes. Gun in hand, he let himself out of the apartment and headed for the roof.

Blair followed him up there. No trace of anyone lurking, but the scattered remains of a party remained, a few beer cans rolled into the corner by the wall, an abandoned plate on the picnic table that a couple of the tenants in 205 had manhandled up here as soon as the weather got warm enough for rooftop parties. The day had been sunny. The neighbours must have taken advantage of it.

No one lurked up here crouching in a corner. If anyone had dangled a tape recorder over the edge of the roof past Blair's window, that meant whoever it was knew which was his window and that he'd managed to flee before Jim and Blair arrived on the roof. Pretty slick timing. Could Jim distinguish between the party remains and traces of someone with a tape player on a rope?

Kurupira wouldn't need tape recorders.

No way, man. That's crazy. But Blair stood there shivering, even though it wasn't cold, and heard the voice playing over and over in his head.

You will die.

"You heard it, too, Jim," he said, feet planted, determination pounding through him. "You know I didn't imagine it."

"I never thought you imagined it, Chief." Jim lowered his gun, head cocked as he tested the night air. "I just thought the idea of a curse was a crock."

"Some people might think seeing a jaguar spirit is a crock, Jim."

They stared at each other, and Jim's eyes narrowed. "Just because that's real doesn't mean every bit of New Age mumbo jumbo is real. You think I believe in werewolves and vampires?"

"But if one thing is real, other things could be," Blair argued. "Not all of them, but selective things. I so don't want this to be a curse, Jim." He shivered involuntarily. "All I'm saying is, it could be."

Jim glared, not at Blair, but at the concept. "I can't buy that, Sandburg. I'm sorry." 

When Blair opened his mouth to protest, Jim spoke quickly. "What I can buy is that someone just made a death threat against you. Nobody gets away with that." He glared fiercely around the rooftop. "They know you go to Rainier, and they know where you live. Who have you pissed off lately?"

"So it's my fault?" Blair challenged. "You think something I did brought this on? I pissed off Chancellor Edwards tonight. You think she turned her feet backward and threw a spear at me? You think she was gallivanting on the roof with a tape recorder?"

"I'm serious, Chief. If there's anybody who might be mad at you, I need to know about it. Anybody who would do something like this, that is."

Blair spread his hands. "I don't know, Jim. There are probably some crooks mad at me for things I did when I was working with you, but I think they'd be more likely to come after you than me. Brackett's in jail, Lash is dead…." He looked up at Jim. "What is it with me, anyway? Do I have a huge target painted on the middle of my chest?"

"Trouble magnet," Jim said with forced lightness. "The spear missed you, Sandburg. You said it missed you by a foot."

"You think it was a deliberate miss?" Blair loved that idea, but he couldn't quite let himself believe it. The whoosh of air past his head as the spear soared by stood out in his memory and made him want to crouch down behind the railing in case another one showed up. Pugnaciously he stood his ground.

"Damn it, Sandburg, I want to believe it was a deliberate miss, part of a student prank maybe, or somebody's weird idea of publicity for the exhibition. That doesn't mean I'll write it off, though, not for one second. Coming after you at home wouldn't be part of a publicity stunt. 

"Let's get inside. In the morning, you come with me to the precinct. I don't want you wandering around on your own. It's Sunday. You don't have any classes, and I'm going in because of the pipe bomber. We're no closer than we were before."

Jim's frustration ground through his voice, and Blair nodded. He had almost forgotten the pipe bomber in the face of the threat against him, but Jim couldn't forget. He'd take it soooo personally if anyone died in the morning from another pipe bomb. The bomber was real to him; bizarre backward-footed gods were imagination. But threats to his Guide's life were real, too, and he'd never tolerated them.

"Okay, I'll come in," he said. He'd have done it anyway because his place was with Jim, especially if Jim had to use his senses. But even in the face of Jim's scepticism, he would feel a lot more comfortable in his friend's presence. You will die. Not with Jim around.

He hoped.

*****

They spent the morning waiting for the other shoe to drop. The general public, panicked by the thought of being the next victim, called in dozens of frightened reports about possible pipe bombs under their cars, and patrolmen checked them out. The closest they came to an actual bomb was an ordinary piece of pipe under a Rainier student's vehicle that, it turned out, had been put there by a buddy who had thought it wildly funny after a few too many beers the night before. He didn't think it was at all humourous after the police got through with him. 

Had the bomber stopped? If so, what did that mean? Only the Kilgores had died. If the bomber meant to hide intentional victims in the midst of others, he hadn't succeeded very well. If he'd simply enjoyed his random power, he wouldn't be likely to give it up so soon. What could have halted him? Was he sick? In jail already for another offence? Out of town for a business trip he couldn't avoid? Or had he placed his bomb right on schedule only to have the planned victim decide not to use his car? Not everyone went out on Sundays. The Kilgores and Kelseys were churchgoers, and Blaine exercised every morning, rain or shine. Had the bomber known their schedules? How could he schedule a bike path? Blaine was likely the most random of the targets, maybe even a test to make sure the devices worked.

Jim took calls from a couple of his snitches, but nothing tied to any likelihood of finding the bomber. He didn't want to take Sandburg out with him to investigate if a lead proved promising enough to follow up. A spear was random and anonymous and could be thrown from a distance, as the Chopec's foray to Cascade the previous year had proven. Jim hadn't seen the spear, but Blair would have told him if it were Chopec, assuming he'd seen it in enough detail while he was ducking to be able to identify the tribe.

He could tell Sandburg wasn't happy with him, but what the hell did he expect? Jim didn't believe for a second that an ancient Tupinambas curse had fallen upon Sandburg for touching the statue in class. Just because Jim's jaguar spirit was real didn't mean every flaky theory about the paranormal had value. Sandburg had talked about a possibly heightened sixth sense, but if Jim had one, it manifested only in his ability to see the jaguar—and in whatever had happened at the fountain. Jim still didn't understand that, and he wasn't sure he wanted to explore it any further.

Sandburg would have been thrilled to pursue it, at least as long as he didn't have to remember all the details. He might think he could separate the resurrection experience from the rest of it, from what Alex Barnes had done to him, but Jim knew he couldn't. He didn't want to lay blame on anyone for that whole nasty incident because too much of it would fall to him. Sandburg insisted he couldn't control his reaction to the other sentinel because of some kind of genetic imperative, and Jim hated that. 

The whole purpose was to have control. He'd have to get Sandburg to show him how to handle it if another rogue sentinel descended on Cascade, instead of pushing him away, isolating himself from random sensation, and in general making a total ass of himself. Finding Sandburg face down in the fountain had shocked him out of it, thank God, long enough to save him, but the presence of Alex had triggered the same reactions all over again.

Jim knew Sandburg should have told him about Alex, knew Sandburg had tried—once. Jim had chopped him off, and Sandburg hadn't realized he was already feeling the influence. He'd said since then that he should have clued in to Jim's unnatural reactions, but Jim had cut him off pretty definitely. The kid was an anthropologist, after all. How the hell could he have resisted studying another sentinel, when the sentinel concept had been his whole life's work?

They should have talked it out, but talking things out didn't come naturally to Jim, never had, and for all Sandburg's flapping mouth, he didn't exactly win any prizes in spilling his guts, either.

Sandburg was back in the loft, life was returning to normal—and now this. What could Jim have done? Told Sandburg, "Yeah, sure, there's a primal god walking around Cascade throwing spears at you"? Had to be a prank, a trick. Why wouldn't Sandburg admit that? Sandburg couldn't actually buy into this curse thing, could he? And even if he did, Jim couldn't. What he could buy into was the need to make certain his Guide was safe. After the fountain, he didn't think he could stand to see a repeat performance.

Simon came out of his office and stared around the bullpen, his face tight. He didn't even have to ask if there was news. Rafe had the phone to his ear, Brown was talking to a witness, Sandburg was working away at the computer, checking the internet for information on serial bombers. Joel Taggert had come in too, and he sat beside Sandburg, the two of them exchanging comments in low tones. 

With a sigh of frustration, Jim got up and went over to join Captain Banks.

"Anything?"

"Nothing. Maybe the bomber planted his bomb, and the owner of the car hasn't gone out to it yet? Even if the bomber knows the patterns of the victims—and we don't know yet that the bomb placements are anything but random—today's potential victim might have varied their schedule."

"I thought of that," Jim agreed. "Simon, can I talk to you?"

Banks gestured him into his office and closed the door. "Is this anything about the weird incident with Sandburg last night?"

"Yeah, we told you about the voice we both heard. My opinion is it's some kind of prank, but Sandburg is insisting it might be a weird curse."

Simon's eyebrows lifted. Instead of answering, he gestured at his coffee pot, offering Jim a cup. Jim sniffed the air—fairly innocuous. He nodded.

When Simon passed him the cup, he was frowning. "Only Sandburg would come up with a crazy theory like that. Anybody else would assume somebody heard about the curse and was having some fun with it."

"Fun?" Jim snapped.

"You know what I mean, Jim. One of his students. Knowing Sandburg, he told them all about the so-called curse and maybe scoffed at it. There's always some wiseacre who takes advantage of that. I say you talk to the students. Sounds like the spear missed him by at least a foot."

Jim felt the muscles in his jaw bunch. "I think that's what's going down, too, but, damn it, Simon, who knows how to throw a spear these days? They don't exactly have classes in it at the university. Javelins in track and field, maybe, but the whole thing feels crazy. Even if they were deliberately trying to miss, how the hell could they guarantee they wouldn't hit him, that he wouldn't dodge the wrong way? 

"Last night was just a tape recording. There weren't any mysterious sound elements in Sandburg's room. I checked it out myself. People had been on the roof earlier, so it wasn't possible to distinguish that from proof of a prankster. I didn't hear the elevator going while I got dressed, and I can usually hear it subliminally. Somebody might have gotten out that way. I was focussed, but I'd have to have nearly zoned to pick up somebody on the stairs. Damn it! I should have been listening. We might have gotten him."

"Come on, Jim, you might have heightened senses, but you're hardly Superman. I bet whoever was up there heard you when you yelled at Sandburg to get down, and took off right then. They were already out of the building by the time you went up to the roof."

"But who the hell are they? They take too many fucking chances. That spear could have killed Sandburg. Who knows what they'll try next? The voice we both heard said, 'You will die'. That's a death threat."

Simon curled his big hands around his coffee cup and sloshed the contents around in a circle, staring into the dark liquid as if he could read fortunes in there like a gypsy. "Jim, you don't think there could be anything to this curse business?"

"Hell, no. Come on, Captain, you don't buy that kind of mumbo-jumbo, do you?"

"Only a few weeks ago you did some weird mumbo-jumbo right in front of me, Jim, and Sandburg's alive because of it. I have to admit I'm uncomfortable as hell about that, but I saw it happen. I didn't see all the weird vision-quest stuff you and Sandburg admitted you experienced, but he was dead, and then he wasn't. I've seen you do stuff with your senses that I'd believe impossible. So maybe we're coming at this wrong. We can't rule out anything, not when it involves the Sandburg Zone."

"If you tell him you're considering it, he'll never let you live it down."

"Come on, Jim, the important thing is that he survives. Sandburg might bug the hell out of me, but I don't want to go through another fountain as long as I live. Don't tell him I said so, but I consider Sandburg a friend. If we have to accept the possibility of mystical crap to save his life, then we do, even if I agree with you that we're probably looking at a student prank."

Jim hated it, but Simon was right. "How the hell do we investigate a curse, sir?" he asked tightly. He set his coffee on the corner of Simon's desk, still untasted.

"Don't worry, Jim; Sandburg will know."

They shared grimaces. Jim made an impatient gesture that nearly upset the coffee cup. "He was disappointed when I wouldn't buy it, like I let him down."

"He wouldn't expect you to believe in ancient spirits," Simon defended Jim, then he frowned. "All this sentinel mysticism that I don't want to know a thing about—you don't believe in them, do you?"

"I don't buy the cursed statue thing. Somebody heard about the curse, and they're trying to fake Sandburg out with it. Has to be."

"I agree with you. But I don't think that'll make Sandburg happy."

Jim heaved a sigh. "God, Simon, it hasn't been that long since he was dead. I halfway feel I ought to believe him, or at least say I do. I don't want to let him down again."

He wanted to take back the 'again' as soon as he said it. He hadn't come in here for true confessions, after all. 

Simon evidently picked up on that. "You didn't let him down, Jim. You saved his life. I don't know how, and I don't want to know, but you did. We're gonna make sure he comes through this, too. 

"I'll put some men on him. It's too bad they couldn't find the spear. You don't think he could have imagined it?"

"He can imagine a hell of a lot, but I don't think he did. Besides, there was a long scrape on a car that matched the trajectory of the spear the way he described it. I checked that out this morning. Somebody did throw a spear at him, or at least something that looked like one. The owner of the car was pretty pissed off about it."

Simon nodded. "I don't blame him. Okay, we've got a spear—or rather, we don't have it, but we acknowledge it. Where does that take us?"

"At best that somebody's trying to scare Sandburg. At worst, they're trying to kill him. But I'm not sure I buy that."

"Why not, Jim?"

He frowned. He wasn't sure, and he had to assume that Sandburg's life really was in danger. "If they know where he lives and which bedroom is his, then they can get to him if they want to. Throwing the spear and hamming it up with the spooky voices only puts him on alert. If somebody wanted him dead, they could just have used a gun last night. They could have put a bomb in his room."

"You're assuming whoever is doing this is sane. He might be some crazy fanatic who believes in the curse and wants to prove it's real by faking it." He grimaced. "That sounds nuts, but there are idiots like that out there."

Jim nodded. He glanced through the window of Simon's office into the bullpen. Sandburg still sat at the computer, but he was talking to Joel Taggert, gesturing expansively with his hands, his face expressive, even excited. Taggert wore a tolerant smile as he listened to Sandburg's babble. Jim knew he'd always liked Sandburg. Somehow, during the course of the past few years, Sandburg had done what few outsiders ever did—he breached the wall. He was one of them now, and there wasn't a man or woman in Major Crime who wouldn't protect him if he got in trouble, who wouldn't kid him the way they did their fellow officers, who didn't consider him family. Anyone in Major Crime who knew Sandburg would defend him from threat, even a screwy threat like this one. Jim wasn't the only one who remembered the fountain.

The other day, he'd seen Rafe stop when Sandburg was going on and on about some tall tale, stare at him, and suddenly grin. When Jim saw him later and asked what the joke had been, Rafe had shrugged. "Just remembering. You know…." His voice had trailed off vaguely, but he'd been there when Jim was struggling desperately to get Sandburg to breathe.

"Yeah," he'd said, "I know," and let it go at that.

He wouldn't let whoever was responsible for this mess hurt Sandburg. Maybe he didn't know how to stop a curse, and that might be the bottom line in refusing it was one. But he'd make sure no one hurt Sandburg.

He hoped he could be more effective than he'd been against the pipe bomber so far.

*****

Morning passed into afternoon with no report of a bombing, but no one at Major Crime was prepared to relax. Somewhere, a car owner might simply have slept in. The bomber might have designed a dud. Or he might have changed his schedule, but nobody believed that. 

Blair watched the detectives around him as they left to investigate leads, or returned with tight faces to prove they had made no arrests. Other cases had to be worked in spite of the concentration on the bomber, and Jim spent some time on the phone working on other cases. When Blair suggested they go out for lunch, Jim's brow contracted, and he shook his head and called for take-out.

"You don't have to protect me," he said. "I'm sure nothing will happen in broad daylight."

"I'm not," Jim said tightly.

"You think somebody will throw a spear at me where anybody can see?"

"You think a curse needs darkness?" Jim challenged.

He had a good point. 

If there really was a curse on the statue, Blair wasn't the only one who had handled it. There'd been no reports of security guards or the people travelling with the exhibit showing signs of pursuit. He'd called the campus security guys who had brought the statue to his classroom, and nothing out of the ordinary had happened to them. 

He told himself that had to mean Jim was right and that it was a prank or publicity stunt. Probably the former, because a publicity stunt would be all over the newspapers, and it wasn't. The article about the exhibit had made the paper and he'd been quoted, but Sharon had done a decent job of it, nothing splashy, and he'd been described as 'an anthropologist from Rainier University', no more. He hoped Chancellor Edwards wouldn't think he'd tried to grab the glory.

"I can't hide here in the bullpen all day," he returned. "Whoever's doing it knows where I live. What am I supposed to do, go to a safe house? If they know where I live, they know I come here. I haven't been hurt yet. That voice last night was trying to scare me."

"Whoever is doing it tried too hard with the spear, Sandburg. They got away with the tape recorder or however they did the sound. They're probably feeling pretty cocky. I don't think they'll quit while they're ahead." He frowned. "Any more than I think the bomber will."

"So what do we do?" Blair asked. "Calling for take-out is only delaying the inevitable. I have classes tomorrow. The university isn't going to like it if I call in and say I can't come because somebody threw a spear at me."

"Simon can arrange to send a uniform with you. He said he would."

Blair grimaced at the image of himself, accompanied by uniformed bodyguard. "That would only prove they'd won."

"The whole point is we don't want them to win."

"I don't want to get speared or worse, either, Jim. But I can't hide here and hope it'll go away. Maybe if I head back to classes, I'll get an idea what's going on. Any smirking students should make it obvious."

"We'll see," Jim said. He couldn't force Blair not to go to Rainier in the morning, but he looked like he wanted to try. 

A part of Blair relished the protective impulse that he knew stemmed from what had happened there just a few weeks ago. He still averted his eyes when he passed the fountain.

"Hey, Hairboy," Brown called from over by the mail slots. "Somebody sent you a package."

Jim was on his feet and over there almost before Brown could finish speaking. "Don't touch it. No, Sandburg, stay over there."

Blair hesitated, foot outstretched. Brown stared at Jim like he thought Ellison had lost it, then the light dawned. "You think it's from the spear guy?"

"I can't take the chance it's not. Taggert, get over here. I think we might have a bomb."

"Wait, Jim." Blair held up a protesting hand. "I ordered some books. Maybe they got sent here instead of the loft. I didn't want them sitting around in front of the mailboxes at home. Is there a return label?"

"No. And your name's printed on one of those computer labels. I don't think it came through the mail. There're no postage stamps on it, and it's Sunday. Might be nothing, but I'm not taking any chances."

Taggert joined him. "Can't be motion-rigged; the mail guy brought it in here and plopped it down on the table. If anything, it would go off when opened. But that doesn't mean we want to slop it around." He put a hand against each side of the box and lifted it up half an inch. "Weighs a ton. Maybe it is books." Then he frowned. "No, the balance is wrong. Books would weigh pretty evenly, and this doesn't." He set it down very carefully. "Let's get the bomb squad here to be sure."

Blair felt his face whiten, but he shook his head. "There wasn't anything about bombs in the Tupinambas curse."

Brown leaned closer. "Maybe the curse thing just gave somebody an excuse. Some idiot out to get you who thinks the curse idea might be fun."

"There's nothing in the curse about heavy boxes," he repeated determinedly.

Simon appeared on the scene. "Sandburg, this is not your private post office box."

"I didn't ask to have it sent here," he said. "Only the books."

"I sent for the bomb squad. They'll take over."

They did. They arrived minutes later and the box was borne away very carefully. The Subway sandwiches he ordered had only just arrived when the box came back, its wrapping paper crunched around it. "It's been printed," the guy who delivered it reported. "Only one set and we already checked with the mail router here; they're his. A few smudges. No bomb, though."

Blair whipped over fast and lifted the lid. Then he just stared. No wonder Joel had claimed it was heavy and unbalanced. The box held rocks, all about the size that would fit in a man's hand. Perfect for throwing….

"Part of the curse involved rocks being flung at the cursed victim," Blair said in a small voice. The detectives stared at him and then at the rocks.

"I bet they didn't mail them in," Rafe offered in a tone that didn't know whether to sound humourous or worried. Connor gave him a strange look that indicated she didn't find anything funny about it. Simon glowered at the rocks. Prank or not, Blair could tell he didn't like the idea of anybody messing with his people.

Tucked in among the rocks were two or three feathers in primary colours, brilliant plumage from birds that might well inhabit the South American Jungle. They probably weren't. Came from the tail of somebody's cockatoo or parrot, maybe. But lying there among the rocks, they stood out like grim reminders of the curse. 

Blair picked one up and weighed it in his palm. In ancient Egypt, they weighed a man's soul against a feather to test his worthiness….

Back in the 1500s before the Tupinambas had been driven into the jungle by the arrival of the Portuguese, they hadn't used mail delivery to get the rocks to the victim. The rocks had just come flying out of the jungle.

That didn't stop Blair's involuntary shiver.

"Where did the package come from?" Jim asked.

The bomb squad guy (his name was McKenzie, Blair remembered vaguely) spoke up. "We checked on that. Some guy brought it in and said it was for Sandburg. We got a description, but a pretty vague one. Probably around twenty. Blond hair. He evidently said somebody had given him a twenty to bring the box."

There were plenty of blond kids in his class. Could it have been one of them?

"Might have made that up to throw us off the scent," Taggert offered.

"Not if he didn't leave any fingerprints on it," Connor objected.

"Proves it's not the curse," Jim said tightly. "Mailing you a box of rocks…. That's just stupid."

"Not necessarily." Simon's face wore a tight frown. "Even if it's a hoax, trying to simulate the curse, that spear wasn't a big joke. The curse itself was to the death."

Sandburg tensed. Jim swore. "Damn it, Simon, you don't think whoever is doing this would carry it that far?"

"I don't think we can take the chance," Banks replied. "We'll see if we can get a sketch of the guy who brought the box. In the meantime, Sandburg—"

A ringing phone caught his attention, and Rafe, whose desk it was grabbed it. "Major Crime." He listened a minute, then his face darkened. "We've got a bombing," he called. "One dead and two injured."

Every man and woman in the room stiffened, then it was business as usual. Blair might be in trouble, and if so, he was sure the team would protect him, but this was real and immediate and it needed attention.

Simon's frown deepened. "Ellison, I want you on the scene. Sandburg, you stay here."

"I can't, Simon. It's my place to be with Jim." He threw the captain a meaningful look. Short of mentioning Jim's senses, there was nothing else he could do to remind Banks Jim might need him on the scene if he had to focus too intently.

The captain glowered at Sandburg, then he gave a tight nod. 

"Taggert, I want you there, too. The bomb squad will be on the scene, but you know as much as they do. Connor, you're with Taggert. There'll be too many officers around for anyone to try anything with Sandburg." 

He poked a finger into Sandburg's chest. "That doesn't mean I want you pulling anything stupid, Sandburg. No wandering off on your own, you got it?"

"I'm not an idiot," Sandburg snapped, but his muscles tightened. 

He saw Jim exchanging a determined look with Taggert. From the expression on their faces, he was sure his blessed protector and Joel would bend over backward to keep an eye on him when they reached the crime scene.

*****

The rain didn't help. It wasn't a hard, pounding rain but that near mist so common in Cascade, not quite enough to need umbrellas, but enough to gradually saturate hair and eventually clothes. Blair hunched his shoulders in his jacket and hoped the rain wouldn't prevent Jim from picking up any leads with his senses. With Blair on hand, he could focus deeper, knowing Blair was there to jog him out of a zone-out. 

Joel Taggert might not know about the senses the way Megan did. She would understand if Blair had to coach Jim through some sensory thing. Blair had a feeling Joel suspected… maybe not all the details, but that there was something extra about Jim. He hadn't said anything to Blair about it, and if he'd asked Jim, Jim hadn't mentioned it to Blair. He wouldn't have acknowledged it to Joel, of course. He hadn't said much to Megan when she'd admitted she knew. 

Jim was such a private guy; and even though he was so much better at control these days, Blair was sure there were times when he felt like he was a freak. Some people didn't enjoy being different, and Jim was one of them. As for Blair, he had always been different and wouldn't recognize himself otherwise, but he could acknowledge that Jim's difference would be especially hard for a man like Ellison to endure.

The injured had been removed to the hospital before the team from Major Crime arrived on the scene, but the body was still there. Jim and the other two went over to it, but Blair hung back, shivering down into the collar of his jacket as moisture dampened his hair and made the curls tighten. He didn't think he'd ever get used to seeing the remains of someone whose life had been snuffed out violently; and since the fountain, he felt even more uncomfortable with the idea. In his mind's eye, he could imagine himself lying saturated and pallid on the ground while Jim and then the paramedics tried to resuscitate him. If not for Jim's abilities, he would be only one more statistic.

Instead, he looked at the twisted wreckage of the car. It had burned; what did that say for the chances of the two victims at the hospital? On the way over they'd learned the identity of the victims: Michael Tanner, the driver of the car, who had died instantly; his wife Shelley; and their ten-year-old son Jared. Shelley wasn't expected to live, but Jared had a chance. Just thinking of the family who had set out innocently for the afternoon expecting no trouble, and had died at the whim of a madman, made Blair's stomach twist painfully. Even if Jared survived, what kind of life would he have?

Simon arrived and went over to the wreckage, where he spoke with a couple of uniformed men. The folds of his raincoat hung around him like court robes.

Rubberneckers had already gathered, some of them under umbrellas, others just braving the damp, and Blair saw Jim scanning each face. Had the bomber come to the scene to see the results of his handiwork? That was what Jim had to be wondering, and Blair wondered, too. The bomber would surely be a stranger, but did everybody else who stood gawking with fascinated horror belong on this quiet street? He was sure Jim and the others would think of that, but he couldn't help wondering.

So he glanced at the crowd. Several people stood in the yard of the house next door, along with a man and woman who appeared to be the homeowners. They had obviously ordered their kids to stay inside out of the wet—and away from the atmosphere of horror and sick fascination of the crowd. Blair could see three children just inside, peering out the window.

Blair gravitated to the couple. "Blair Sandburg," he introduced himself, gesturing at the ID badge he wore. "Major Crime." Simon would have a fit at Blair representing himself as a detective.

"We're the McAllisters, Bob and Betty," the husband replied.

Blair nodded to acknowledge the introduction. "I have a question."

"We didn't see anything," Betty said. Up close, Blair could see the horror in her eyes. She had a scarf over her hair against the wet, but hadn't even bothered with a coat when she'd rushed outside. Absently, she ran her hands up and down her arms for warmth. Beads of moisture dotted her face like tears. "Oh, God, poor Shelley. We were neighbours rather than close friends, but we'd talk. My Benny is the same age as Jared. How could something like this happen here? This is a nice quiet street."

Her husband put his arm around her. "It's that maniac, isn't it?" he asked. "The one who's been setting off the bombs every Sunday. When are you cops gonna catch him?"

"We're trying." Horror had probably never touched them before. He could understand the ferocity of the man's temper. "It's possible he might be here to witness the results. Are there strangers here watching, people you've never seen before?"

As he waited for the answer, Blair's graze flickered over at the group of policemen. Jim had turned to seek out Blair with his eyes. When he spotted him conversing with the next-door neighbours, his stance relaxed slightly.

Betty stared. "You mean he could be here right now?" Her hands flew to her mouth. "Bob, the kids…."

"He won't do anything more here," Blair reassured her. "That's not his pattern. But we don't have any way of telling if there are strangers here. If you could point out anybody who doesn't belong…."

"Common sense. I like that." McAllister gave his wife's shoulders a squeeze and let go, pushing her toward the steps where an awning sheltered her from the elements. "Let's have a look." 

He walked with Blair closer to the scene, pausing to nod at neighbours, to wave at a few people on the other side of the street. Then he turned to Blair and spread his hands helplessly. "There are at least a dozen people here besides the police and the obvious reporters who I've never seen before." He gestured down the block, where cars parked haphazardly in the middle of the street. "And more coming. Gaaah. They're ghouls."

"If you could point them out…." Blair gestured to Jim, who hurried over to join them. "What have you got, Sandburg?"

"This is Bob McAllister, Jim. I thought he could point out strangers."

"Good thought, Sandburg. We're video taping the crowd, and there are bound to be a lot of gawkers, but an inside word would help."

"I could come and go over the video if it would help," Bob McAllister volunteered.

"We'll take you up on that," Jim said and began to ask questions.

He knew better than Blair which questions to ask, so Blair turned to study the crowd. 

The bomber, if here, would hardly wear a sign that read "guilty", so he tried to interpret expressions. Too many of them wore an air of avid fascination Blair found sickening. People always slowed down and craned their necks for a look when they drove past an accident, hoping for a glimpse of the carnage. He wasn't sure how much of that was a craving to touch dark excitement and know it wasn't touching back, to know that while horror happened, it happened to others, or how much of it was a side of human nature that was repelled even as it was fascinated. Maybe it was sexist to expect more sorrow and grief on the women's faces, but he found little to distinguish between the sexes. One woman looked absolutely horror-stricken; maybe she'd seen the bodies. Blair could relate to that, and he had enough experience with Major Crime to have hardened him a little. Not completely—he still felt sick to the soul at the sight of a violent death. He didn't have Jim's edge.

But Jim had chosen to work this job, had trained for it. Even though he could face such things with a calm Blair could never hope to emulate, it bothered him, too, Blair knew. Jim had just learned, over the years, to shunt the emotion aside so he could do the job. Confronted with real tragedy, he hurt as much as Blair did; he just wore it inside where it didn't show except for the tightened muscles of his jaw and the hardening of his eyes.

Blair drifted in the direction of the woman whose face held so much pain. She saw him coming and stood her ground, although the temptation to retreat was spelled out largely across her features. Then she gnawed on her bottom lip. She was probably Jim's age, but life had given her discontented wrinkles around her mouth and put defeat in the lines of her body. There were a few strands of grey in her untidy hair. She looked like a woman who had given up expecting anything good in life, as if she knew there was no longer any hope of wonder. Indifferent to the rain, she stood and waited for Blair as if his presence was as inevitable as death and taxes.

"Blair Sandburg, I work with Major Crime," he introduced himself. "Did you see it happen?"

She shook her head. "No. I… didn't."

"Do you live here? Know the Tanners?"

Again the head motion. "I… no."

"Driving by?"

She thrust out her chin. "I heard it on the news, and I came to see if…."

"If…." he prompted gently.

The horror in her eyes went all the way to the soul. "To see if he was here," she whispered.

Blair felt his muscles tighten. He was sure Jim would hear his heart race. "He?"

"My… husband." The loathing in that word rang out, vivid and stark. "Burt. But he's not here. He wouldn't be. He'd be as far away as possible."

Blair caught his breath. "Your husband?"

"He did it. I know he did. And I know why."

"You're saying your husband planted the pipe bomb?" He sensed Jim's approach and put up a hand to hold him a little off. He wasn't sure the woman would continue if anybody else intervened, and Jim could hear every word from much further away than that.

"Yes, I'm saying it. I'll testify if I have to. He wants to kill me, I know he does."

"To kill you? But this…." Blair waved his hand at the shattered wreckage of the car, the twisted metal.

"You think he wants to get caught? All these other people, they're—they're window dressing. So that when he kills me, I'll just be one more random victim. I can't take it any more. I know he did it. I know where he keeps the stuff to make the bombs. Not at our place, oh no. He wouldn't do that, not where the kids might find it. He loves the kids, in his own way. He just… doesn't love me any more."

"And you think he may have been doing all this so that nobody would realize he only wanted to kill you? To lose you in the shuffle so no one would look for a specific motive?" He didn't think he was putting words into her mouth; that's what she'd implied already.

She turned her back on him, and he thought she was going to bolt, but then he realized she had simply turned her face away so the TV cameras wouldn't pick up on her. He shifted position to further block her, and saw her realize what he had done. Even in profile, he could see a flash of surprise and gratitude on her face, as if such a small courtesy was beyond her ken.

"I think he did this. And I think the last thing he'd do would be to come and watch." The bitter acid of her words revealed a life of such despair that Blair could scarcely imagine it. "He's probably off somewhere with his buddies, telling them what a big man he is. He doesn't care about the poor people in that car. They're just a means to an end. He doesn't have any… any morality. It's as if nobody's real to him but him. Even the kids. They're important because they're his, not because they're real. They're just an extension of him. But me—he hates me now; he doesn't love me. It took me a long time to realize he never did, he only just wanted me for a while. He wants somebody else now. I pity her. She'll have to learn to live with despair."

Blair caught Jim's eye. He knew he couldn't judge if this might be true, or if the woman might have convinced herself of the story to find pity in a life that had become unendurable. They'd have to check it out.

"Ma'am?" Blair put his hand on her shoulder. For the first moment she flinched as if a touch could not possibly signify kindness, then she bowed her head at the small gesture of humanity and began to weep.

Jim came up to them and surprised Blair by easing his arm around her shoulders. "Ma'am, I'm Detective Ellison. Would you be willing to come in and make a statement?"

Her head lifted slightly. She didn't bother to wipe her eyes or her running nose or mop the rain from her face. "Yes," she said. "There's nothing else I can do. The kids… I can't let him stay around them. They might learn to be amoral, too. They might turn out like him." She shuddered into the circle of Jim's arm.

Blair backed off. A reporter snagged him. "Who is that woman?"

Blair frowned at him. "A woman with kids and compassion. Do you know what compassion means? There's a little boy whose life is ruined. He's already lost his dad and might lose his mom. Some people might care about that." Even if you only care about a story.

"And you are detective…."

Blair turned away before the reporter could take a good look at his ID. The whole scene sickened him. He didn't want the press to descend on that pathetic woman. Whether her assumption of her husband's guilt was true or simply her inevitable belief to cope with a life that had failed her, she didn't need the press. And Blair needed a chance to breathe clean air away from the horror of the bombing scene. 

He walked between the Tanners' and McAllisters' houses and stood there in the side yard out of sight of the twisted metal and gaping spectators, just collecting his breath, settling his soul. He noticed Jim tracking his movements with his eyes as he waited for Simon to join him; then, when the captain reached him and the distraught woman, Jim turned away and began to talk to Simon in a low voice. The cameraman started in their direction, but Joel Taggert intervened, summoned by some esoteric detective know-how, and positioned his body between them and the reporter.

Blair drew a huge shuddering breath as if he could cleanse his whole body of the grimness of the scene.

Something swooped down over his head from behind—rough cloth, a gunny sack. Before he could realize what was happening and start to struggle, hands grabbed him, lifted him right off the ground, and a hand clamped over his mouth. He tried to yell a warning to Jim, but couldn't get out a sound around the bag and the pressing hand. He couldn't tell if Jim had heard the abortive shout before his captors muffled it. The bomber? The pranksters? Then they were running with him, further and further from rescue. There were cops all over the place, but he didn't hear any shouts to indicate that his kidnapping had been witnessed.

His captors tossed him into an enclosed space that gave slightly as several bodies joined him. A car door slammed; not a trunk, then… maybe the back of a van. Another two doors slammed, and he heard the key turn in the ignition and the engine catch. Jim might be able to use his sentinel abilities to recognize the sound of the engine, but Blair couldn't. All he could do was feel the hands that pulled his wrists behind his back and secured them with rope.

The voice he'd heard on the tape recording spoke in a whisper, that weird accent shocking in the otherwise silent vehicle. "You have defiled our image. You will die."

"Fun's fun, but this is enough," he managed to say, his words muffled. "You'll be in trouble for this."

"You are cursed," the voice intoned. "Cursed."

"Yeah, right, and ancient Tupinambas drove SUVs."

"I told you," someone whispered hoarsely, the voice too distorted with panic to be recognized.

"Silence!" The weird accent cut across the uneasy voice. "He has defiled the god."

It dawned on Blair that there was another option, midway between curse and prank. Some lunatic who actually believed in the curse, in Kurupira, might be determined to avenge his god. There were nutcases like that out there. Was this guy one of them, or was he just so deep into the role that he couldn't help maintaining it? How could he know what the Tupinambas had sounded like? Blair didn't. The accent could have been theirs or simply something the guy had invented to add verisimilitude to his scam. No way to tell.

So Blair concentrated. There were at least three of them; two had climbed into the back with him, and he had heard only one other door shut, which could have been the driver, or maybe a passenger, the driver waiting in the vehicle. So maybe four at most. He tried to listen to the breathing, to single out the number of people, but that was a sentinel ability, and in spite of working with Jim for over three years, he had quickly learned sentinel skills couldn't be achieved by osmosis.

People without sentinel senses could learn things. Blair had seen at least two movies in which the hero was blindfolded in the back of a car or van and had judged locations by sounds and numbers of turns; in both movies he'd thought he'd heard a party going on, and it had turned out to be a flock of geese, so when backtracking, the hero had been able to figure out where geese would be found, or at least used the sound of them to gauge where to turn. No such fowl obliged Blair, and as far as he could tell from the sound of the tires on the pavement, they didn't cross any bridges. There were a lot of stops, suggesting traffic lights and stop signs, but he didn't hear anything unusual. Once there came a distant wail of a siren, and he allowed himself a flare of hope that Jim was trailing him; but it faded away to nothing. With the misty rain, the van's windows had to be up; no one wanted a face full of rain. Although it wasn't a cold day, he could hear the heating system, probably running to keep the windows from fogging over, and the intermittent slap of the windshield wipers.

It was hard to breathe in the bag. 

If this really were a prank, an out-of-hand student prank, his captors had gotten in way over their heads. If it wasn't a prank—and he had to say he really wanted to believe Jim that it was—then what was it? An obsessive Kurupira worshiper? Hard to believe anyone in his class, or anyone besides experts in the field of South American tribes, had heard of the Tupinambas before the exhibit came to Rainier. Such fanatics didn't spring forth without provocation.

So what, then? Something to do with the bombing? Blair doubted it. He wasn't a member of the police department. Why would the bomber threaten him with the same curse he'd talked about in class? He didn't want to believe any of his students would pull a prank like this, but he didn't see how it could be anything else.

The van slowed, turned, and right away he could feel a difference in the road; it was rougher, so they couldn't go as fast. It felt more like a rutted trail than a paved highway. Blair got the same feel to the ride that he did when he and Jim went fishing or camping and hit a remote back road. He was in major trouble.

"If you let me go right now, I won't press charges," he offered.

The voice that had sounded distressed earlier muttered, "Charges," in a voice that shook. Movement suggested the guy with the peculiar accent had pushed or prodded him to silence.

"There will be no charges made against the god," he rattled off.

"Look, it's clever, and you put a lot of thought into it. It might even be worth a good grade, but kidnapping's illegal, and the police won't let you get away with it. Let me go, and I'll help you." 

"No one will find you. The Tupinambas know how to deal with captives."

The van stopped, and the driver's door opened. A second later the back door opened. Three people manhandled Blair out of the van, keeping the bag over his head. They didn't want to be seen. Did that mean they'd be recognized? Kurupira wouldn't care about that.

He heard a lot of scrambling around, metal striking against metal, and a muttered curse that didn't sound remotely like Weird Accent. Then Blair felt himself lowered. He kicked out involuntarily and his feet hit something that gave a little like loose dirt. A second later he landed. The hands holding him went away, but his hands were still tied, so he couldn't tug the bag free. It shifted and gave him a brief glimpse through a tiny hole of a pair of bare legs with the feet pointing the wrong way. He couldn't see them clearly, just enough to tell that they were bigger than usual and muscular as hell. Then someone moved between him and the weird feet, and he heard a sound that sent his heart plummeting to the pit of his stomach, the scrape of a shovel. A second later something landed on his feet. Dirt.

Oh, God, they were burying him in the ground. Burying him up to his waist like the tribal sacrifice victims. Like the guy who had been found dead with cuts all over his face. Jim, you've gotta find me.

But Jim didn't come. There was only the relentless thump of dirt filling the hole he stood in. Not even Weird Accent spoke as the shoveller tossed dirt into the hole around him, trapping him. He couldn't see more than very close shapes, normal legs, although they moved occasionally to grant him fleeting glimpses of the backward feet. Kurupira wasn't doing any shovelling. He left that to his underlings.

It can't be Kurupira.

What if it was?

"Listen, you don't want to do this," he insisted. "You'll get into trouble. It's been a good prank so far, but you ought to call it off now."

They didn't listen to him. They kept right on shovelling. 

"Come on," he tried once more. "I don't know who you are, but if you're in my class, if that's where you got the idea, you'll get a good grade for creativity. But once you bury me, no grade. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect $200." You're babbling, Sandburg, he thought, but he had to keep trying.

Full of thoughts of Jim's spirit animal, real, sometimes visible to Blair, he knew that he couldn't automatically assume this was a prank. If the jaguar was real, this might be real, too.

And if it wasn't real, it still might not be a prank. His captors might have had it in for him and used the Kurupira legend to do it.

He'd blithely described the curse to his students, inviting them to share a modern sophisticated amusement over the gullibility of previous centuries. Had someone in the class taken it the wrong way? Who? Some of the students stood out vividly; some faded into the background. Hard to imagine his brightest pulling something like this.

But students were susceptible to idiocy. They could pull stupid pranks anyone would assume they'd never contemplate. They could egg each other on until their schemes got out of hand, take a gag one step too far. If these were his students, and that one worried voice sounded the right age, then they'd crossed the line.

"You're in my class, aren't you? I remember wanting to get rid of a teacher or two in my time, but you're going about it the wrong way. Just talk to me. Tell me what this is really about. We can work something out." 

The dirt stopped coming. He could feel it settling around him at mid-chest. Were they actually listening to him? 

His hands were buried behind him. He'd flexed the muscles in his arms to give him some play, but he hadn't gained much. The ropes weren't tight enough to cut off circulation, but they seemed firm. He wasn't sure he could free his hands, and even if he could, would he be able to work them out of the loosely packed dirt and dig himself out of the hole?

"We will return for you," said Weird Accent, and added in a voice that was meant to sound like the god speaking to his minions. "Leave him."

"You're not just gonna leave me out here?" Blair wailed. "Let's work out a deal. Just tell me what you want. I've got friends in the police department. You'll be in big trouble for this. But if you let me go now—"

"Come." Weird Accent didn't sound like he was remotely interested in any deals or threats Blair could produce.

Someone behind Blair yanked away the burlap bag and flung it down on the ground. He caught a glimpse of a sleeve in a leather jacket, no more. Then they were running away behind him, and even though he strained to look over his shoulder, he couldn't turn fully enough to get more than the briefest fuzzy glimpse of three male backs.

"Wait, come back!" he yelled. "Come on, don't just leave me here."

Car doors slammed, the engine revved, then the vehicle peeled away, leaving him alone. Held securely by the dirt, he couldn't glimpse the vehicle. They'd positioned him carefully when they'd thrust him into the hole.

As the sound of the van faded, panic filtered into Blair's heart. He couldn't succumb to it, couldn't let himself drift into a full-blown panic attack. Jim would find him—but how? The view ahead of him was simply one of rain-laden trees, with no evidence of civilization in sight. They'd driven long enough to get him right out of Cascade; that last road had probably been an abandoned logging road. He could see the edge of it if he craned his neck, but he wasn't sure which way would lead him back to civilization.

Even if Jim drove all over Cascade listening for his heartbeat, he'd never think to come up here.

A drop of water from one of the overhanging pine branches landed squarely on the top of his head, feeling almost like a blow. It was still misting, although it wasn't quite hard enough to qualify as rain any more. While he would have hated to have been left with the sack over his head, at least it would have helped to protect him from the elements.

If Jim didn't find him, he could die of exposure.

Frantically, Blair flung himself forward against the earth that held him, then back. If he could compress it enough, maybe he could wiggle out. The first few efforts offered him a few inches of give, then the dirt began to compact against itself, and he stopped struggling. Loose, it might allow him to scramble free if he could undo his hands. Packed tight, it might hold him securely as it thickened into mud.

Come and find me, Jim, Blair thought desperately. Maybe the added sense that had sprung into being at the fountain could stretch out like a fine wire connecting them and could latch onto Jim and draw him in.

That was stupid. It was Jim who had the ability, not Blair, and he'd been uncomfortable with it. I'm not ready to go there with you, he'd said when he'd visited Blair in the hospital. He was uncomfortable enough with the enhancement of his normal five senses. Enhancement of the sixth, a sense he'd fight with all his being to resist, might never occur to him. He hadn't believed in the curse. He'd believed the threat was of human origin, and he'd been right. Blair wouldn't believe the people who had thrust him into the earth had any supernatural assistance. No curse then, just a prank. But the prank might well cause Blair's death if the pranksters didn't return. Could Jim sense his desperation? Could he open himself up to the same possibilities that had burgeoned at the fountain? Would he try?

Blair set to work on loosening the bonds around his wrists. If he could free himself and dig his way out, he could rescue himself. How long did he have before the pranksters returned? He'd rather face them free and independent, or be gone before they showed up.

For all he knew, they planned to simulate the Tupinambas ritual of flinging knives at the half-buried enemy.

Let's pass on that one, shall we?

Time passed as he struggled ineffectually against the bonds. The fact that his hands were buried in the earth only made it harder. Leaning forward gave him a little play, but earth crumbled from above into the hole, and the angle made the back of his neck vulnerable to the water drops from above. Chinese water torture had nothing on the pines' attack. Periodically he had to hunch his shoulders and lean back to take a break from the insidious dripping. When he did that, it landed on his head. Too far back put uncomfortable pressure on his arms and won him steady drops of water in his face. Limp and sodden, his hair plastered down against his head, and goose bumps rose on his body.

Come and find me, Jim. I need you.

*****

Jim led the distraught woman over to Simon Banks, sparing a quick glance for Sandburg, who stood between the two houses collecting himself. Man's inhumanity to man always got him down, but he could step back a little, collect himself, and plunge in again with renewed energy. He was safe there for the moment. Once Jim dealt with the suspect's wife, he'd send Connor over to keep Sandburg company. "Captain, this is Estelle Gillespie. She thinks her husband is the bomber."

Simon studied the woman measuringly. "And?"

"I think it may be possible, sir. Tell him what you told me, Mrs. Gillespie."

"It was the computer," she said. "Well, that and the way he's been treating me, and the way he watched the bomber news. I was checking for a recent website I'd meant to set as a favourite and hadn't, and I found a website about making pipe bombs. I went to it, and it told just exactly how to do it. And I remembered he'd printed off pages of stuff, and when I came in, Burt snatched it out of the printer and hid it from me, and I was sure the website was the same one, even though he closed it right away. Then I found a receipt for a storage shed in his pocket before I sent the jacket to the dry cleaners. We don't need a storage shed. We don't have extra stuff. Nothing I know of, anyway."

"We've got the location," Jim explained.

"We'll need your authorization to enter it, ma'am," Simon told her.

"Of course."

"Does he have any experience with bombs?" asked Simon

"Not really, but the website said anybody could make them. He reads mysteries, the police procedural kind. Maybe somebody in one of them made pipe bombs, or maybe he saw it on the news once and kept the idea in his head."

"Any reason why you think he might want to kill you?" Simon asked.

She bowed her head. "I have a… a friend. A man friend. We're not lovers," she added hastily, "just friends, but Burt didn't believe me. He said I was a bitch and unfaithful, and I wasn't. But he's so cold, so distant, I needed a friend, and Jason treats me like a human being. I know he'd never hit me or scorn me. I… needed that, someone to treat me like I was worth something. But I couldn't sleep with him because I did promise, for better or for worse, and he understands that. I thought this was the 'for worse' part, and I did my best to make sure the kids didn't have to realize how cold and hard their father was. But I needed Jason to be my friend, or I couldn't have gone on."

Jim felt sorry for the woman. How many people lived lives like hers? What was that quote, 'lives of quiet desperation'? She'd endured, found ways to make hopelessness endurable. Maybe this Jason would stand by her if her husband proved to be the bomber.

"I'll give you the key to the storage unit," she said. "I got so suspicious, so afraid he was doing something to… to hurt me. I went over there with my ID, and the girl in the office gave me a spare key. I had to pay extra for it, but I did that before I came over here." She held it out to him.

"Did you go in, ma'am? Did you see the pipe bomb paraphernalia?" Simon asked as he pocketed the key.

Her head bobbed up and down twice. "Yes. I saw it. He did it. I know he did."

"We'll check it out," Simon decided.

Jim glanced around for Sandburg. He wasn't standing between the houses any more. Quickly Jim raked the crowd with his eyes. No Sandburg. Damn it, where had he gone?

"Simon? Where's Sandburg?"

Banks must have heard the alarm in Jim's voice because he stiffened to alert like a gun dog sniffing a pheasant. He scanned the crowd, then held up a hand to summon Taggert and Connor. They converged on him.

"You seen Sandburg?"

Joel stiffened, and Connor's eyes widened. The Australian woman looked involuntarily at the place where Jim had last seen him. She must have noticed him standing there, too. 

"I'll check, sir," she said to Simon and hurried off in that direction. Jim wanted to race over there, too. If Sandburg had just moved out of sight into the back yard of one of the houses, Jim would have to come down on him hard.

"Sandburg!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. No distant answer interrupted the sudden silence produced by the shout. "Damn it, where's he gone?" Jim growled.

"It's Burt," blurted Estelle Gillespie. "I know it is. He must have seen me talking to Detective Sandburg. He might have wanted to find out what I said."

Jim exchanged a glance with Simon. "You haven't seen him here?" he asked. He didn't bother to correct her for calling Sandburg a detective.

"No, but it was Detective Sandburg who noticed how upset I was." She wrung her hands. "It's all my fault."

"None of it is your fault," Jim told her tightly. She was simply a victim, the way Sandburg might be. Whether Burt Gillespie had been lurking and grabbed Sandburg the way his wife suspected or whether it was more of the same thing that involved the thrown spear, mysterious curse and what Jim firmly believed was a prank, the end result was still the same—Sandburg out there in trouble. Damn it, Sandburg, I told you to stay close.

A hasty search by the uniformed officers, Jim, Connor, and Taggert failed to produce a trace of Sandburg. Jim stalked back to the space between the houses where he had last seen his Guide. The wet grass showed traces that someone—a number of someones—had recently walked across it, disturbing the moisture and leaving trails so blurred that not even a sentinel could pin down actual footprints. Jim traced them behind the Tanner house, between two others that backed on the Tanners' and McAllisters' property, out to the street. There they stopped. The wet pavement left no traces. But the suggestion was clear that someone must have stopped here in a car, and that Sandburg had been driven away in it. Possibly someone could have taken him into one of the houses, but Gillespie didn't live here, and it would be too big a coincidence to believe the pranksters did.

Jim retraced his steps, avoiding the marks that he and he alone could see. One set of footprints dragged. Sandburg, leaving deliberate marks for his sentinel to follow? But there were more than one other set. If Burt Gillespie had trapped Sandburg, he hadn't done it alone. And that wouldn't match his wife's story.

Still, they had no proof that her story was anything but imagination. Would she recognize what it took to make a pipe bomb? Had checking a website enabled her to do that at a glance? Why would Gillespie have targeted Sandburg last night? He'd have no reason to believe that any cops had the slightest clue to his identity, or even to know Sandburg existed. 

No, this had nothing to do with Gillespie and probably everything to do with the prank. Had they been followed to the site of the bombing or had the pranksters heard it on the radio and assumed Sandburg would be here? Didn't matter which. What did was that they had him, and that unless there was a witness here on this street when everybody had probably hurried one block over when they heard the Tanners' car explode, Jim had no way of telling where Sandburg had been taken.

With Connor at his side, he knocked on doors up and down the short street. No one answered but a little old lady who hobbled to the door with a walker. She'd been listening to the radio to find out about the explosion and hadn't been watching the street. Probably anyone else who had been home had migrated to the site to join the gathering crowd that stood around in little groups, watching the police work.

By the time he and Connor returned, Simon had already sent Mrs. Gillespie home, Rafe and Brown with her in case Gillespie proved to be at the house. She would allow them to search for evidence. 

Simon glanced up and down the street, frowning when he saw no sign of Sandburg. "Damn it, Jim," he blurted, "we should have kept a better eye on the kid."

"Come on, Simon, there were cops everywhere. He was in plain sight. What the hell should we have done, handcuffed him to me?" He heard how angry he sounded and knew it was because he believed he should have done just that, anything to keep Sandburg from disappearing like this.

"Jim, I'm gonna give you Connor to check it out. I've already sent Rafe and Brown ahead to the Gillespie house to make sure he isn't there, and Taggert will accompany me to the storage area. I told them to meet us at the storage shed once they do a quick check. I want you and Connor to follow up on Sandburg. He didn't just wander away on his own."

"No, sir. I found marks in the grass to suggest several people took him away. He was dragging his feet, probably to leave marks for me to find. He'd know I'd be able to tell. But they left by car, and there were no witnesses."

Simon swore under his breath. "This has gone past a prank. Kidnapping someone is a crime. You find Sandburg, and you get whoever did it."

Jim's stomach knotted up. "I plan to." He didn't want to think about Sandburg out there in damp weather like this, so soon after the drowning in the fountain. If the people who snatched him had been willing to throw a spear at him, go to the trouble to figure out how to fake those backward feet—Jim was sure they'd been faked—and attempt to terrorize him with a recording threatening his life, they wouldn't treat him kindly now. "I plan to."

*****

Jim knew just where to start his search. Blair had said he'd told one of his classes about the curse when he'd shown them the statue. Jim got hold of Sandburg's student roster of classes and printed out a couple of copies. 

"We're going to track all these kids down?" Connor asked. She skimmed the printout. "Do you recognize any of the names?"

He glanced through them. Sandburg sometimes talked about his students, but he talked so much that half of what he said went in one ear and out the other. 

"Dave Hammer. I remember that one. Sandburg says he's the class clown, always making funny remarks. Sandburg says he's got a brain the size of Einstein's, though." 

He looked a little further. "This one here, Karen Silcott, has got a major crush on Sandburg. I met her once when I went by to pick him up. She was hanging around his office lusting in the worst possible way." A brief smile flickered across his face as he remembered how he'd teased Sandburg about it, but the smile faded immediately. His jaw clenched. 

None of the other names sounded more than vaguely familiar.

"I'm sure Sandy has a lot of students lusting after him," Connor said.

"You have to ignore it. He can gloat…." Jim let that trail off. Once they found Sandburg and got him back safe and sound, he could gloat all he wanted to, and Jim would let him. Just let us get him back safe and sound, he thought.

Connor patted his arm, then returned her attention to the list. "We start calling them?"

"We're here at the University. Hammer lives in student housing." He touched the address on the sheet. "We'll start there."

Dave Hammer was home and answered the door on the first knock. A tall thin boy with a shock of thick dark hair, he wore a Rainier tee-shirt, and he carried a book in his hand. Ulysses, Jim read upside down. The kid's eyes widened at the sight of them, spared Connor an appreciative look, then narrowed on Jim. "You're Detective Ellison," he said. His mind kicked into high gear. "Has something happened to Mr. Sandburg?"

He was smart; it was a logical assumption, but Jim felt his own eyes narrow in suspicion. "Why do you think that?"

"Because I know he works with you at the police department. I saw you a couple of times when you came by his office. I can't think of any other reason for you to come to see me."

"Do you know anything about possible trouble?" Jim asked tightly.

Hammer hesitated, but he was only collecting his thoughts. "There's a rumour going around campus that something weird happened at the exhibition last night. Something about a spear and a curse. Jack Hartigan and I went over to Wonderburger for lunch, the one right by the campus, and we ran into a couple of girls we know, and they were telling us about it. I thought it was probably some kind of prank or trick, y'know? Mr. Sandburg was telling us all about the curse of Kurupira in class."

"So you think somebody in the class was trying to make it look real?" Leading the witness, but Jim didn't sense any elevated heart rate or respiration in the kid. He was interested, surprised that the campus rumours might hold validity, worried that Sandburg might be in trouble, but Jim didn't think he had anything to do with Blair's disappearance. Jim wouldn't go on that instinct, though, not with Sandburg missing.

Hammer scratched his head. "Come on in. Sorry it's such a mess." He gestured around the place, an efficiency apartment weighted down under the usual student clutter of strewn clothes, a few empty beer cans, a ton of books over everything, even a few tribal masks like the ones Sandburg had at the loft. Yet the desk in the corner was relatively tidy, a laptop computer open but not on, folders in a neat stack and several books ready for studying. 

"The summer session's gonna be tough," Hammer said with a wave at the books. "Mr. Sandburg always makes us work. This is my third class with him. He's a really good teacher."

"Yeah, I know that," Jim agreed. He knew it first hand from the way Blair had plunged in and taught Jim how to cope with his senses.

"I suppose I can't offer you a beer when you're on duty, but do you guys want a soda?"

Jim declined, and Connor shook her head. 

When Hammer grabbed a few shirts and pairs of jeans off the only comfortable chair and ushered Connor into it, and gave Jim the desk chair, the student sat cross-legged on his bed. 

"You think somebody in the class thought it would be fun to fake out Mr. Sandburg with the curse? And somebody told you I'm a smartass, and you thought it might be me?" He shook his head. "No way. I may mouth off a little, but this is my life. I'm going to be an anthropologist, and I wouldn't mess it up with a stupid trick like that. It's okay to make a few wisecracks in class; Mr. Sandburg even likes them. He cracks some jokes himself. But I wouldn't throw spears at a teacher. You could go to jail for that."

Jim shot Connor a warning look. He didn't want to confirm that Sandburg was missing, not yet. "So anybody come to mind who would?"

Hammer frowned. "Most of the kids think Sandburg's great," he said. "A couple of the girls would like to know him a whole lot better." He threw Jim a man-of-the-world look that Jim ignored. The kid shrugged. "I don't know. I was there when he talked about the curse. We all thought it was kind of funny that anybody in this day and age, nearly to the millennium, would believe anything like that."

"Do you remember if anybody was absent?"

"So you can cross them off your list?" Hammer scrunched up his face. "No, everybody was there. First week of summer school, and it's an early afternoon class, so nobody would be tempted to sleep in. A lot of us have had classes together before. We're mostly juniors and seniors, we're taking more classes in our field. There were, let me see… I'm picturing the class layout. Five rows of desks. Six deep, but there were a couple of empty places. Sometimes you get smaller classes in the summer session. 

"Then there were the two security guards who brought the statue. It was valuable, so they didn't just let Mr. Sandburg bring it himself. One of the guards stood there the whole time like he thought one of us was an antiquities thief, and the other waited outside the door."

Jim hadn't thought of that, but the guards might prove good witnesses. He'd contact campus security as soon as they finished with Hammer. The kid was smart. He might have observed something. Or he might be playing with them, and be behind it himself. Jim didn't get that feeling from him, but he couldn't discount it, either.

"I remember he told us about the curse," Dave went on, "and then I asked if anybody had ever been found dead clutching it looking scared to death." His fleeting grin faded. "Mr. Sandburg's not dead, is he?" His gaze lingered on Jim's face. "No, you're worried about him, but you'd look a lot worse if…. God, this sucks."

"Go on," Connor urged him. "Give us your impressions. Anything that might help us."

"Mr. Sandburg's in trouble. I'll tell you everything I can." He described the class, including paraphrases of comments from the students. 

"Mr. Sandburg always makes it interesting," he said. "And he makes us think. We were all pretty shocked about the Tupinambas and their rituals, cannibalism involving captured prisoners, things like that. Mr. Sandburg said that we're looking at it from a 20th century perspective and that we should think about what people four or five centuries from now might think about stuff we take for granted. True, we're not cannibals, but, God, I thought about it, and a few generations back, they wouldn't let African Americans drink from the same drinking fountains as white people. Folks who considered themselves moral and virtuous saw nothing wrong with that." 

He shook his head. "I'll do anything I can to help you."

That was one thing about Blair, Jim realized. He knew how to make people think. He could get to just about anybody, given half a chance. He'd even made a tough nut like Simon Banks like him, although Simon didn't go around admitting it. Blair could come up with whole new areas of questioning with witnesses, things that the rest of Major Crime, trained in their police routine, might never consider. 

It hit Jim with the force of an express train how much he valued Sandburg. Here was this bright kid, thrilled to death at something Blair had said in class—and there was Jim, Sandburg's best friend, who, only a few weeks earlier, had thrown him out of the loft. Son of a bitch….

"So, going back to the rumours you and your friend heard," Jim cut in abruptly. "You know the other kids in the class. Do you think any of them would consider it funny to try to duplicate the curse?"

"Hell, I'd think it was funny, but not to the point of throwing a spear at Mr. Sandburg. If I'd pulled something like that, I'd have done it in a way that would make people laugh. Not sure what I'd've done, since I didn't think of it, but I wouldn't have done that, or whatever it is that happened to him that brings you here. I'm not sure anybody in class would have tried to hurt him—except…."

"Except?" prompted Connor.

"Except there's a kind of student mentality. You get a couple people together, and give them a few beers, and the brain waves go bye-bye. People egg each other on and they can do really stupid things. I ought to know. I've done my share." He produced a wry grin. "That's why things like hazing can get out of hand. You get too many people together, and the intelligence rate changes inversely. They turn into a mob. Even good kids can get sucked in. 

"I'm not saying half the class decided to pull something on Mr. Sandburg. I don't think they would. But maybe one or two…." His brow furrowed.

"Who?" Jim demanded. "Who in the class doesn't like Mr. Sandburg?"

"Well, I think nearly everybody likes him. They might not always like the homework and tests, but that's not the same thing." 

Jim could relate to that. Sandburg put him through enough tests. More often than not, he found himself going along with them, even when such cooperation had been the furthest thing from his mind.

Hammer's forehead scrunched up. "Jerry Otterbach isn't really into anthro so much. It's his minor rather than his major. He sort of oozes by on as little effort as possible, and he was pissed when Mr. Sandburg gave him a bad grade on his latest paper." He frowned. "But he asked about the curse in class, and he usually never says anything in class."

Bingo. The first real lead they had. "You think he asked about it so he could duplicate it?"

Hammer scratched his head. "You know, I wouldn't have thought he'd go to the effort, but maybe if somebody egged him on…." The frown deepened. "He doesn't really hang with anybody in the class, though. I can't see any of them going along with anything that might cause danger for Mr. Sandburg. Throwing that spear—I heard it missed him by inches. I don't think Jerry has the… the physical courage to try something like that."

Jim trusted the kid's assessment of his classmate; Hammer was smart and perceptive. But that didn't mean Otterbach would work alone. Jim had seen the footprints of several people in the wet grass. 

Hell, for all Jim knew, Hammer was smart enough to say all the right things and be behind the whole thing. Would it be something a class clown would think funny? Unless the guy was pretty sick, kidnapping Blair wouldn't rank up there in the list of all-time great pranks, unless he was safe in such a way it would turn out funny. 

Jim wished he could believe that, but the inner sense of alarm that had been building wouldn't allow that degree of hope. The Sentinel-Guide bond didn't often venture off into the realms of weird mysticism, but sometimes it did. It hadn't led Jim to Sandburg, although maybe it would if he plunged into it. But what it did tell him was that Sandburg faced danger right this minute. He didn't want the knowledge, but it was there inside him, thrumming through the bond they shared, too real to be denied. This wasn't a big joke dreamed up by a student comedian. This was serious, maybe a prank, but a prank gotten out of hand. All it would require would be for one of the pranksters to take it seriously, and then Sandburg's life would be in complete jeopardy.

Not that Jim thought anybody really believed in the curse of Kurupira. But the curse itself had prompted the idea.

"Where do we find Otterbach?" he asked.

*****

"Cold and wet is my world."

Blair wasn't sure how long he'd been stuck in a hole in the ground, and all his squirming hadn't enabled him to crawl out yet, although the dirt around him had packed in to the front and back enough for him to lean forward and work on his wrists. The knots had proven stubborn, resisting his efforts to work his hands free, but he was afraid his contortions had tightened the knots, and he couldn't really get a grip. His fingers were numb, not to mention slippery from the rain and the mud that coated them.

No matter how much he twisted, he couldn't see his wristwatch, and the heavily overcast sky prevented him from estimating time by the sun. 

The misty rain had finally stopped, but by then his jacket had become saturated, bleeding through to his shirt. He remembered his doctor telling him to avoid getting thoroughly wet, that for a while he'd be more prone to bronchitis and even pneumonia as a result of the drowning. He didn't feel any tightness in his chest—not yet. Too bad nobody had told the guys who had stuck him out here in the woods that he shouldn't be in such a situation.

Woods? How did he know he was in the woods and not just a public park? Well, if he had been buried in a public place, somebody would have seen him before now. His captors would leave him somewhere remote, where he wouldn't be spotted; where they wouldn't be spotted. They'd hardly stick him in a hole in Cascade Park. Besides, he could hear no traffic, no voices, nothing to suggest there might be people nearby, and the only movement was the occasional bird, and once a rabbit had startled him by hopping past. He'd thought he'd come here by a logging road. Far enough from Cascade that Jim couldn't sense him, no matter how intensely he focused. Far enough that there might be wild animals? He shuddered, then he opened his mouth and yelled for help at the top of his lungs. 

Even though nobody answered, he resolved to keep yelling every few minutes, in case somebody came within range. Even if it wasn't exactly the greatest day in the world for a stroll in the woods, you never knew if some fanatical nature lover might be out and about.

"Anybody! Help!

Jim would be looking for him, trying his senses, trying everything he knew. Blair hoped he'd stick by Simon or Megan, who knew about his abilities and who might be able to talk him out of a zone-out. Don't go in too deep, Jim, he thought.

Something whizzed past his left ear and landed with a plop behind him.

He froze. What was that? A pine cone falling? No, they didn't fall sideways, and they didn't move that fast. They weren't that heavy either. Whatever it was had flown past too quickly for him to recognize it.

Whoosh. Plop. Something else soared past and landed beyond him, and this time he was alert enough to recognize a flung rock.

The Tupinambas had thrown rocks at their trapped victims.

He was pretty sure the Tupinambas hadn't missed.

"Hey!" he yelled. Maybe it was someone who didn't realize he was here. The odds against that might be astronomical, but he couldn't take the chance.

"You will die." It was that eerie voice again with the bizarre accent. "You will die, unbeliever." Oh, God, they were back. Maybe they hadn't really left.

"And you'll do jail time," he countered. "Look, it's been a great prank, but it's time to end it. You've taken it too far."

"We do not speak of pranks, Blair Sandburg. We speak of curses. Those who handle my image must perish."

"Those who handle it irreverently, maybe," Blair countered. "But I value such artefacts."

"You mocked the curse."

Mocked it? He'd merely shown a 20th century amusement, but he'd followed it with an attempt to understand the values of another culture, a less enlightened one. There was no one in his class who could be descended from the Tupinambas, at least not that he could think of. This could hardly be a genuine religious fervour. "No, I didn't mock it. I simply showed how our culture might view it, as a superstition. Modern man believes himself enlightened. That doesn't mean we know everything or understand everything. Remnants of tribal cultures do linger. I wouldn't be studying sentinels if that weren't true." 

He didn't have to reveal the proof of one tribal throwback to his students; everybody knew he studied sentinels and admitting it wouldn't reveal Jim's secret. He often tested the sight and hearing of his students for sentinel abilities and occasionally found someone with one of those senses enhanced.

"You will die."

"That's pretty annoying. Why won't you listen to rational arguments?"

"You call me irrational?" The accent almost faded, but then it came back. Oops, careful, Sandburg. Don't push the wrong way.

Another rock whizzed through the air. This one grazed his left shoulder, and he jerked and flinched at the sudden blow. It hadn't been hard enough to cause more than a bruise, but the next one could be. The next one could hit him full in the face. He hunched his shoulders and bent his head to shield himself, knowing he couldn't avoid a second blow. 

The thrower lurked in the trees, just far enough away to be no more than a shadowy outline in the gloom under the trees. If he squinted, he could see a second figure behind the first. Hadn't there been three in the van?

"Stop it," called the person in the background, whose voice sounded familiar. Disoriented by the cold and damp, he wasn't sure he could identify it, but he thought it might be the one who had whispered in the van.

"Silence!" ordered Weird Accent. "Do not think to dissuade me. This was your plan." He made an abrupt gesture. Blair narrowed his eyes and tried to recognize the man from his general outline.

"No. I didn't think it would be like this."

"You were not used as I was." The accent held, but rage filled the voice, a submerged, boiling anger that made Blair uneasy. It was the voice of someone with a determined grudge, and he wasn't sure how rational that grudge was, or how rational the speaker, either.

"Used? Come on, it isn't real," the other voice pleaded. "It isn't real." It cracked on the last word. Blair recognized the sound of sheer panic when he heard it.

"You don't know that." The accent faded entirely. "Shut up. He used me. He risked me. I'm going to make him pay."

"What do you mean, he risked you? That's crazy."

Weird Accent's voice went very soft and silky. "Are you calling me crazy?"

The new chill that ran through Blair had nothing to do with his sodden clothes and the insidious sapping of his body heat by the earth that partially entombed him. More than a prank, this was the plan of someone who might not be entirely sane. 

He risked me. What did that mean? Blair had risked someone? How? And why retaliate with the curse?

"How did I risk you?" he ventured in as quiet and gentle a voice as he could manage.

"You tried to place the curse upon me, to turn it from yourself." The accent was back, but that note in his voice as he made his accusation was as far from reassuring as he could get.

"I didn't try to place a curse on anyone," Blair insisted. "How could I do that? I don't know how to place curses. I'm an anthropologist, not a witch doctor." This would not be a good time to mention the Shaman of the Great City gig. Blair scrunched up his brow and tried to imagine how anyone could possibly believe he'd put a curse on them. Surely none of his students would believe that bringing the statue of Kurupira to class could curse them. They were modern kids, not 16th century primitives. None of them had even touched it. He hadn't dared risk that, not because of the so-called curse, but because the statue was so valuable that he'd needed security guards to protect it while he displayed it.

Security guards?

Hadn't one of the guards griped about touching it? The students had laughed, but the security guards had handled the statue. Surely they hadn't believed in the curse? The one who had griped? Blair tried to remember his name. They weren't part of the Cascade security staff; they were private guards who had been hired to protect the exhibit. Their names had been… Jake and Leon. Blair thought it was Jake who had made the comment in class. Who had hired them? The university? The exhibit itself? Had the guy resented being made to handle a supposedly cursed artefact? That was crazy.

But the voice didn't sound entirely sane.

That didn't explain the backward feet Blair had seen in the parking lot. Jim had believed that was his imagination, but Blair knew he had seen it. Distant and distorted, under a row of cars and that one quick glimpse between them, it might well have been faked somehow, although he wasn't sure how. Movie make-up? 

It didn't matter. What did was that the crazy voice with the put-on accent seemed to honestly believe Blair had cursed him. How could Blair convince him differently, when he sounded so deranged?

He had to try. "Jake?" he asked softly. Was it a mistake to admit he suspected the identity of his captor?

"He knows you," wailed the familiar voice. The whining note in it struck a chord, and Blair realized why it sounded familiar. "Jerry!" he exclaimed. Jerry Otterbach might not have been as dedicated as some of the other students but Blair would never have suspected he'd pull something like this. A clever prank might be Dave Hammer's game, but Dave would never endanger anyone's life or risk his own brilliant future to play it. Who had the third been?

"He knows us both," Jerry wailed.

"Shut up, little brother," hissed Weird Accent, all trace of accent gone. But Blair's mind clicked into high gear. Brothers? Jake and Jerry were brothers. Now that he thought back, he remembered Jerry saying something to Jake when the two security guards entered the classroom. Such a little thing had seemed unimportant in the general scheme of things, and he'd let it go unremarked. Now it came back to just a brief exchange as Jake had set the case containing the statue on the desk.

"Look, let me go, and we'll write this off," Blair offered. He wasn't sure he could do that. Even if he agreed not to press charges for being snatched and confined, Jim wouldn't let it go. He wouldn't need Blair to press charges to arrest these two, at least Blair didn't think he would. They hadn't hurt him yet, short of one small bruise on his shoulder. If they stopped now, they might not get anything worse than some community service. "Let me go and I'll do what I can to keep the two of you out of trouble."

"Lift the curse," Jake snarled. Another rock whizzed past, so close it barely grazed Blair's ear. If he hadn't flinched to the side when he saw it coming, it would have hit him right in the eye. 

Jim, come and find me fast. He sent the thought urgently to his friend. If only they could telepathically communicate with each other. Could ancient sentinels and Guides do that? Did Jim know what jeopardy he was in? Could it lead him to Blair?

Lift the curse? Could he do that, fake out some shaman ritual, stall like crazy, just to play along, to give Jim more time to find him? How could Jim do it? He might listen for Blair's heartbeat, but he'd be listening in Cascade. No matter how heightened his hearing was, it wouldn't let him hear Blair's panicked heartbeat miles away.

"Don't think your cop friend will come for you," Jake yelled from the shelter of the trees. Even now, when Blair had guessed his identity, he didn't come forward. "He doesn't know where you are. He's off looking for the bomber."

Blair sucked in his breath. "Was that you?" he blurted. "You're not the bomber?"

"Hell, no, I'm not the bomber. But I thought he would go where the bomber had been, and you'd go with him. When we heard it on the news, we went over there."

And he was a security guard, with at least some police-type training. He'd probably been able to insinuate himself into the scene, maybe even wearing his security uniform. The people in the neighbourhood wouldn't have noticed. He wasn't wearing it now. Blair couldn't tell what he was wearing, just that it was dark and enveloping. A raincoat? A cloak?

Yeah, right, Sandburg, most bad guys wear cloaks when they throw rocks at people half-buried in the ground.

"Lift the curse." A rock whizzed past his head. "Lift the curse, or the next one takes you full in the face."

"If you do that, I won't be able to lift the curse," he bargained. "If you kill me, it will stay with you for the rest of your life. You'll be the next one in a hole like this." 

Was he as loco as Jake to even attempt such a delay? He could probably fake a ritual—he'd seen enough of them in his field excursions to pull it off. He'd talked to a genuine witch doctor or two, and he'd been researching shamans like crazy, ever since Incacha had passed along the way of the shaman to him, and along with it the full responsibility to be Jim's special shaman. He could pretend if he had to, put on a good show. But what he couldn't create was any kind of reaction in Jake to convince him the "curse" had actually been lifted. Unless the guy was so suggestible in his delusion that Blair could fake him out.

"Come on, Jake," wailed Jerry. "There isn't any curse."

Jake whirled on his younger brother. "What do you know about it? Nothing! I know it's real. It's on me. I can feel it. He'll take it off, or we'll leave him here for the wolves."

"There aren't any wolves around here," Jerry protested.

Blair hoped he was right.

Wolves?

Almost as if the thought had summoned one, the eerie wailing howl of a wolf tore through the afternoon. Blair expected to freak at the sound, but he didn't. Instead a sense of utter reassurance flowed through him, and he couldn't help thinking of the wolf spirit. He wasn't as used to sudden spirit manifestations as Jim was, but he wondered if he looked in just the right direction with the proper degree of squinting, he would see the wolf spirit, just as Jim saw the jaguar. The thought that it would show up in his moment of need blew his mind. Even with the fountain, he hadn't been quite sure. It could have been a fever dream, a manifestation of his subconscious, a symbolic means of explaining the unexplainable. But to have proof of its reality… Excitement shivered through him.

Tell Jim, he thought urgently.

"See! See! There's a wolf!" wailed Jerry.

Should they be able to hear his spirit guide? Had it allowed the sound to reach them so it could protect Blair? Or was it a real wolf? His shivering intensified.

"Sandburg. You will lift the curse."

Blair frowned. How could he do that when there wasn't one? He could recite some mumbo jumbo, an incantation, maybe in Latin so it would sound impressive. Before he could do it, another rock whizzed past him, so close he felt the wind of its passage against his left ear.

Something moved in the forest, a shadowy figure, walking backward. Its feet stuck out the wrong way beneath a flowing robe. Blair got one quick glimpse of it before it vanished between the trees. Kurupira? More of the hoax? The third man from the van? I don't like this.

The scream was so sudden and shocking that Jake jumped a foot and swore under his breath, all thought of maintaining his hokey accent gone. "What the hell was that? Bob?"

There was no Bob in Blair's class. It didn't matter. The third guy emerged from the trees, flinging his cloak away. He moved awkwardly but not before Blair saw the padded material on the fronts of his legs, a kind of flesh-coloured covering shaped to enhance the image of backward feet. The guy's feet pointed the right way, but the exaggerated musculature of the phoney calf would fool anyone who couldn't see the rest of his body clearly. 

In spite of the stark and utter panic on the stranger's face, Blair heaved a silent sigh of relief at the explanation for what he'd seen the night before.

"What the hell…" Jake challenged and jumped in front of him to stop his headlong flight.

"There's a wolf in there," Bob blurted, waving a desperate hand back the way he had come. "It's huge. It's after me. Let's get out of here."

The wolf appeared, a blurred, shaggy shape rushing through the trees, and started for the three conspirators. Blair couldn't see it clearly, but it definitely looked like a wolf to him. 

Was he primed to see it? Had the spirit guide allowed itself to be visible? Wasn't it only a manifestation of his own mind? 

Jerry shrieked and bolted, but Jake stood right there. He flung a rock at Blair's spirit animal. It snarled as it eluded the flung stone. 

Jake lost all composure. "I'm cursed," he bellowed. "I'm doomed." He took off after his brother and Bob as if he had wings on his heels.

Blair watched their departing backs, then he realized they were abandoning him where he might never be found. "Wait."

"The hell with you," Jake yelled back. "We're outta here."

The wolf chased them all the way to the van. Blair heard doors slam, the engine start, the clatter of tires on gravel.

Would they come back with guns? Or would they abandon him here, alone in the woods where no one would ever find him? 

Even though the rain had finally stopped, he felt chilled to the bone, the cold of the earth seeping into his body, the sodden state of his jacket pressing against his shoulders, his hair dangling in a lank tangle around his face. Exposure killed people, even people who weren't already vulnerable to bronchitis and pneumonia. If Jim didn't find him soon….

The wolf spirit trotted back to join him, an expression of smug satisfaction on its face. It stopped directly in front of Blair, leaned in so they were eye to eye. Its eyes were blue, just like his own. Strange, but up close it looked more like a Siberian Husky than a wolf. 

With a soft whuffing sound, it touched his nose to Blair's, then it curled around behind him offering support for his shivering shoulders. Gladly, he leaned into a warmth that couldn't be. A spirit animal shouldn't be physical. But it felt physical, and it felt warm. Maybe it was real… yet a real wolf wouldn't protect him like this. Spirit animals weren't like Lassie, rescuing Timmy from the bad guys. A dog? Somehow he didn't want it to be an ordinary dog—or even an extraordinary dog. Even if it had protected him and now curled around him, he couldn't let go of the thought that it was his spirit guide in physical form, here in his hour of need.

"Can you find Jim?" he asked aloud. He didn't think Jim talked to the jaguar spirit—Jim would never admit it if he did—but it wouldn't hurt Blair to try.

There was no answer in words, not even in growling or howls. But a sense of reassurance permeated him. Was it just that he needed so badly to believe, not only to save his life out here in the cold, wet woods? Or was it that it would somehow validate his shaman status if the wolf were real?

If the three conspirators returned, the wolf would defend him like it already had. 

How had it known? Read it in his mind? Sensed malice in Jake and the others? Could Blair send the spirit guide—or dog, if dog it were—out to find Jim, the way Timmy sent Lassie for help? If not, would Jim somehow find him on his own? Not even a sentinel's senses could reach so far. Blair couldn't quite get his mind around the concept of the two spirit guides reaching out to each other with a kind of psychic communication.

Would his refusal to believe inhibit the chance of rescue?

Was he delirious? Maybe he'd imagined it all.

But no, he couldn't imagine the warmth against his shoulders, or the smell of wet fur.

Would a spirit animal's fur be wet in the mist? 

Another moment of warmth at his back, then the wolf stood away from him, planted his front paws on Blair's shoulders, and pushed him forward against the packed earth.

"What are you do—" he began, only to fall silent as he felt the wolf's snout pressing into the narrow trench, seeking out the ropes that bound his hands. With an effort, he tried to lift them higher, ignoring the strain that it put on his shoulders and back. Teeth that shouldn't have been real gnawed at the rope that bound him, gently working it in such a way that the vulnerable flesh of Blair's wrists wasn't touched. He wasn't sure how long it took, but the moment the bonds parted was one of the greatest of his life. If the wolf was real, not spirit, it was the greatest trained wolf of all time.

The wolf drew back, circled around and sat on its haunches, panting gently, almost as if it were laughing. It didn't have to speak a word. Blair knew what it was saying to him. "What are you waiting for? Do I have to do everything for you?" Blue eyes met blue, and Blair could almost see an expectant expression on the furry face.

"Maybe you're not my spirit guide," Blair told the animal. "And maybe you are. But if you're not, you're no wolf." For the first time, he saw the animal wore a collar, nearly concealed in the thick fur. There was even a tag on it that Blair was too tired and fuzzy to read. 

"Okay, Lassie," he said with a choked laugh. "Go find help. Timmy fell in a hole. Bring back Jim—or somebody. Anybody. I'm not picky here."

The animal's ears pricked up. Blair stretched out a dirt-caked hand and stroked it behind the ears. Its tail stirred. Then it jumped up and loped away at a steady, easy pace.

Blair paused only long enough to make sure his wrists weren't bleeding before he set to work to dig himself out of the hole.

*****

Simon lowered the binoculars and turned to Joel Taggert, beside him on the hill overlooking the storage area where Burt Gillespie, according to his wife, kept the tools of his bombing trade. "That's his car," he said. "The plates match. He's down there."

"He's not expecting us," Taggert replied. "But his wife says he's got the wherewithal to make more bombs." 

"That's why I need you with me down there." Taggert's bomb squad experience was just what the doctor ordered.

Simon called for backup. They couldn't let the man get away, and he might have weapons in there, even if his wife hadn't mentioned any. Soon they had a couple of squad cars.

They drove down, showed their badges to get into the secure area, and Simon Banks positioned the squad cars at each end of the avenue where Gillespie had his storage unit. Rafe and Brown arrived as they got into place. Simon waved them ahead, and they parked a few units past Gillespie's. 

When the sound of their car failed to lure Gillespie out, Simon drove down the row of storage sheds to pull up behind Gillespie's car. The shed's door remained shut, and the place had no windows, but it was possible he might have heard the cars. They waited a second to see what he would do, then the four men positioned themselves on either side of the door, weapons at ready.

"This is the police," Simon called. "Give yourself up, Gillespie. Come out with your hands up."

If Gillespie's wife was simply an alarmist with a too-vivid imagination, the guy would appear in astonishment. He might even do that to fake them out. But Gillespie's wife wasn't. Instead of surrendering, he fired a flurry of bullets through the roll-top door. 

The four detectives flung themselves flat and Rafe blurted out a cry of pain.

At the shots, the two squad cars raced closer, just as the door burst open and out came a man who had to be Gillespie. He had a rifle tucked under one arm, but that wasn't what stopped Banks from jumping at him. The man had sticks of dynamite strapped to his chest. Gillespie's hand clutched what looked like a timer or trigger. Banks was no bomb expert, but he didn't like the look of those red sticks, and the whistle of dismayed breath from Joel Taggert convinced Simon the former bomb squad officer was even unhappier than he was.

"Stay back or I'll detonate." Gillespie was a man of maybe forty, thin and wiry, grim lines of dissatisfaction marring what might have once been a classically handsome face. He glanced around, fixing the position of each of them in his mind. 

Brown, on his knees, hovered over Rafe, who lay curled on the ground, blood staining the sleeve of his jacket a lot faster than Simon liked. If the bullet had hit an artery…. Brown's mouth traced a tight line as he struggled to stem the bleeding.

"Anybody moves, and that'll be nothing by comparison," Gillespie spat. "You. Move away from him. I want you all lined up like good little soldiers right in front of me. You guys in the squad cars, too. Move it. I don't know how you found me, but I'm not going down for it. If I do, I'm taking you with me."

"He'll bleed to death. At least let me get the bleeding stopped," Brown objected.

"I don't give a shit if he bleeds to death. Move away from him now, or he'll be dead in pieces plastered all over the landscape, and so will you."

"Go," Rafe muttered. Pain laced his breath. Even if the wound wasn't serious, and Simon couldn't be sure from this far away, shock and blood loss could kill a man.

Brown hesitated long enough to knot the cloth he'd wrapped around his partner's arm and to guide Rafe's good hand to the wound to continue the pressure, then he stood up slowly to avoid startling the bomber with any sudden moves.

"How'd you find me?" Gillespie demanded. "The bitch talk? First thing I'm gonna do is waste her. First thing you're gonna do is get me a helicopter so I can fly out of here." He studied them all, then focused on Simon. "You're in charge. I can tell. You want your men to die? I don't think so. Call in for a helicopter for me. And throw in a million dollars while you're at it."

He must have thought he could head for Canada, bypass Vancouver and vanish into the wilderness. Simon didn't mean that to happen. The best thing he could do right now was stall for time. He didn't know how long Rafe had, not if a cut artery was still pumping blood into H's makeshift bandage, but it wasn't as if there was a choice. Simon held up a warning hand. "Let me get my cell phone out."

"You bring out anything but a cell and these guys are all dead."

Very carefully, Simon drew out the cell phone and keyed in the dispatch number. "This is Captain Banks. We have an emergency at the Hunter Storage Company on Westcott and Pine Road."

"Tell 'em about the chopper," Gillespie urged tightly.

"We have a hostage situation. The suspect demands a helicopter." He glanced at Gillespie and added before the man could remind him, "And a million dollars in cash." Just stating the situation would start the wheels in motion. Even as he spoke, additional manpower would be dispatched to the location. 

He lifted the phone away. "I need to tell them the reason for your demands. Otherwise they won't negotiate with you." They wouldn't anyway, but Simon needed to get the information to the right people.

Gillespie's eyes narrowed, but he finally nodded. Simon lifted the phone. "Suspect is wired with sticks of dynamite," he said. "The helicopter will need to approach with caution." For "helicopter" read "backup."

Dispatch asked urgent questions and, one eye on Gillespie, Simon answered them. "We have one man down. Send paramedics to this location, but tell them to wait to come in on my signal." He caught Gillespie's eye. "All right?"

"Keep them out of here. It's an excuse to bring in more cops. I'm already going down if you take me. What's one more dead pig?" He nudged Rafe with his foot. 

The dark-haired man glared up at him, but his face was too white. Brown's makeshift dressing looked like it was already saturated. There wasn't much time. His bloodied fingers fumbled to find the pressure point.

Simon wished Jim were here. Even after three years of knowing about Jim's senses, he wasn't sure quite how comfortable he was about them. But Jim might be able to judge things like the guy's heart rate, the tightness of his finger on the trigger device, useful information that could allow him to time jumping him. 

And what if Jim was wrong, that it wasn't a bunch of pranksters who had snatched Sandburg? Maybe Gillespie had been lurking at the scene. Maybe he'd seen Sandburg talking to his wife. For all Banks knew, Sandburg might be in the storage shed, and Jim would be able to tell. Even if it was true that Sandburg had been snatched by more than one person, they only had Mrs. Gillespie's word that Burt Gillespie worked alone.

"I want that helicopter here in half an hour," Gillespie snarled.

Simon dutifully relayed that information over the phone. "It might take longer to get the money," he offered up as a delaying tactic.

Gillespie poked Rafe again, this time right in the arm. Rafe cried out, the remaining colour draining from his face, and it was only through a hasty gesture with the detonator that Gillespie stopped Brown from tearing him apart.

Taggert caught Brown's arm and pulled him back, shaking his head. "You won't help him," he warned.

Simon looked down at Rafe, who lay huddled, moaning, clutching his arm. No new blood oozed between his fingers. Was that a good sign? He looked like shit. If he bled to death….

"What's the matter, the pig can't take it?" Gillespie mocked. He drew back his foot for a kick.

Simon saw Rafe's muscles bunch to try to ride the blow, but Rafe surprised him. He shot out his hands, caught the moving foot, and heaved hard. Gillespie's momentum toppled him, and Rafe was all over him, ripping the trigger from his hand and flinging it as far as he could. The effort proved too much for him, and he collapsed on top of Gillespie.

Simon's muscles clenched in horror, waiting for the detonation. He could see Taggert squeeze his eyes tightly shut and hunch his shoulders. Brown's mouth dropped open, and he yelled, "Brian!" and flung himself down to shield his partner. Futility. He couldn't shield him from dynamite, not when he was right on top of it.

But the seconds passed, and the dynamite didn't detonate. What the hell?! Simon risked a cautious breath. Joel's head emerged, turtle-like, from its hunched state.

With a pained gasp, Rafe muttered in a shaky voice, "…wasn't connected. …could see the… loose wire. Don't think he… had time. …faking us out…." His eyes slid shut.

Simon and Taggert dragged Gillespie to his feet and stripped away the dynamite belt. Taggert took charge of it while Simon cuffed Gillespie and read him his rights. As soon as the perp was secured, Simon spoke into the cell phone. "We got him. Get those paramedics here right away."

"I'll get my own back, wait and see," snarled Gillespie.

"I don't think so. Three known deaths, possibly four. An injured child. If Rafe…." He didn't finish that. He didn't need to.

Gillespie glared at them all the way to the squad car.

Sandburg wasn't in the storage shed, but plenty of equipment for making bombs was. Not only that, newspaper write-ups for all the pipe bombings had been pinned to the wall. Maybe Gillespie had started the random bombings as a way to disguise his wife's murder, but he'd enjoyed the notoriety he had achieved. Thank God they had him.

He notified Ellison and Connor as the paramedic van arrived and screeched to a stop beside them. While the medics tended Rafe, Simon assured Jim that Gillespie didn't have Sandburg.

"We've got a possible lead, sir," Jim admitted. "Someone who may have dreamed up the prank. We can't find him, but his roommate at the dorm says he's been acting funny the last few days. Guy has no record, but he does have a brother who's a guard with the security company that's guarding the Tupinambas exhibit."

"You think that means anything?"

"We can't find the brother, either. But he'd have inside knowledge about the exhibit. And it sounds like he was there in the classroom when Sandburg was describing the curse. We checked with another student in the class, and after we found out about the security guard brother, he said the guy complained that he'd touched the statue and got a laugh out of the kids. But in retrospect, the student thinks the guard might have been serious about it."

"You mean he believed he'd been cursed by the statue?" In this day and age, that seemed as unlikely as hell. But over there in the squad car was a man who believed it was okay to kill total strangers rather than get a divorce. There were a lot of sick people in the world.

"Check it out, Jim. We got Gillespie."

"I will."

Simon ended the call and went over to the paramedics. Brown hovered protectively. It was always tough on a man's partner when that partner was down. That was why Simon hadn't mentioned Rafe's injury to Jim. He had enough on his plate with his unofficial partner missing.

"How is he?" he asked.

One of the paramedics looked up. They already had an IV in place. "Lost a lot of blood, sir. But the wound itself isn't serious. We're going to transport right away."

"Will he be all right?" Brown demanded.

Rafe opened his eyes. "Just a scratch, H," he reassured him. He might have been more convincing if he hadn't sounded so faint, if his face hadn't been so ashen.

"They'll transfuse him right away," the paramedic said reassuringly. He glanced up at Brown's tight face. "You can ride with him, if you like."

Brown gave one tight nod.

By that time the crime team and the bomb squad had arrived on the scene and were going over the shed. Taggert had joined them.

Simon saw Rafe conveyed into the ambulance, Brown scrambling in after him, then he turned and went to join the others at the shed.

*****

"Damn it, Samwise, where the heck did you go?"

David Farr whipped the Jags cap off his head and scratched his tawny hair. He'd picked a crummy day to spend in the woods, but Edwinna's parents had been here until yesterday, and David had needed to stay around and socialize with Theo and Madge. Never comfortable in his enforced retirement, David had needed to get out and do something once his in-laws had departed. A tramp in the woods would be good for the leg. It stiffened up if he didn't stay active. Born and bred in the Pacific Northwest, he didn't let a little thing like rain stop him, and Samwise would go out in any weather. He, too, probably missed the excitement of police work. Tail wagging, David's canine companion had jumped eagerly into the jeep and rode, in spite of the wet, with his head thrust out the passenger-side window.

They went up an old logging road David liked to follow. Get right out of Cascade, put all his troubles behind him. When they reached the end of the trail, David locked the jeep, and he and Samwise went out to walk. The old bullet wound pulled a little—three days of inactivity could do that—but David ignored it. It would ease as he moved about. 

He was right. Half an hour into the hike, the stiffness loosened, and he lengthened his stride. 

Samwise, rid of the leash out here where he could run free, bounded around David in eager circles. "Don't get too far ahead, boy," David called. He knew Samwise would return to him with just a whistle. Police dogs got top training, and he had continued to work with Sammy after they had been put out to pasture. 

Retired at forty-three. Not what David had ever expected. He ran a little computer business out of his home, to keep his hand in and supplement the disability pay. But that was sedentary work, good enough for the first year after the shooting when he was still trying to put his life back together, but lately he'd started to consider something a bit more challenging. Detective work might do it. He still had the contacts. He could touch base with his old snitches, and he knew a lot of guys at Cascade PD who would work with him if he needed them to.

Edwinna was iffy on the idea. No doubt she was remembering sitting in the hospital waiting room with Captain Fredericks and the guys from the squad after the shooting, afraid he would be once again putting himself in harm's way. Maybe he would, but even police work didn't have to be that dangerous. When he'd taken the drug runner's bullet, it was the first time in his entire police career anyone had even shot at him. And there was sure to be some detective work that wasn't that dangerous. Spying on straying husbands, checking out embezzlement at companies, that kind of thing. If Edwinna wouldn't buy it, he'd scrap the idea. He didn't want to put her though hell over it. But Edwinna was strong. She had to be, to be a social worker with those abused kids. Not everybody could do that kind of work. He'd have to see.

Samwise gave a sudden bark, just one. The husky wasn't much of a barking dog, so would use it as a signal that something had attracted his attention, then he would go silent. If there was a bear nearby, he'd be a lot fiercer than that, and he'd never bark if he spotted a squirrel or a rabbit to chase. 

"What is it, boy?" David called. But Samwise only looked at him, ran off into the trees in the direction they'd come, then returned to stare at him as if to say, "What are you waiting for?"

He ran a little ways once more, then came back. When he took off again, he vanished into the trees. But the message was clear. "Hurry up. Follow me."

David set off after the dog as fast as he could. Not as fast as he would have liked, not like the kid who'd broken all the track and field records at Cascade East High twenty-five years ago. Running was when the leg bothered him most. 

A branch snapped under his bad leg and pitched him down on his knees. He wasn't hurt, but the old wound throbbed from the unaccustomed motion. He levered himself up and continued in the direction Samwise had gone, at a much slower pace. He whistled once for the dog, but Sammy didn't come back. Either he'd gone right out of earshot, or something was wrong. Dogs had better hearing than humans did. Whatever had attracted his attention could be some distance off, or even be moving further away all the time.

He had no choice but to keep going, but he didn't whistle again, just in case whatever Samwise had pursued might not welcome human intervention.

Well, Davey boy, you wanted action. Just maybe you've got some.

That was when he heard the shot.

Handgun, not a rifle. Not hunters then. What have you gotten yourself into, Samwise?

He pulled out his cell phone and keyed in 911.

*****

"They got Gillespie," Jim said to Connor. One less thing to worry about. Jim had been pretty sure Gillespie hadn't been the one to snatch Blair. His crime was most likely carried out alone, without allies, and he didn't sound like the type to risk coming to the bombing scene to witness his handiwork.

So where the hell was Sandburg? 

Jim had checked out Jake Otterbach, the student's brother, and learned the guy was good at his job, but he didn't have friends among his co-workers. They found him strange and avoided him off duty. Did that mean he was the type to fall for the story of the curse? It seemed completely improbable to Jim that anyone would buy it for a second, but he couldn't completely discount it. He couldn't discard any possibility that might lead to Sandburg. Maybe the guy was a first class nutcase.

Oh yeah, Ellison, just the kind of guy you want to snatch Sandburg.

"One less thing to worry about," Connor agreed. "But we have to find Sandy. You think any of Otterbach's co-workers would know anything about where he might take him?"

"They don't know anything about his private life," Jim reminded her. "At least not the two we talked to. 

"Hammer says the kid brother has a friend named Bob McAfee. We can check him out. Turn left on Maple. He's way out on the outskirts of town. Pine Ridge Road."

Connor turned obediently. They drove in near total silence, with only one question from her, since she'd never driven this way before. 

With the bomber under arrest and no trace of Sandburg at the storage shed or the bomber's house, they were right back to the Kurupira thing again. The curse that couldn't be real. The student hoax that had gotten completely out of hand. Those weird kids might have dug themselves in so deep that they'd think the only way out was to get rid of the witness. Jim hated the thought of that.

Pine Ridge Road led right out of town into heavily forested terrain. Houses spaced at intervals indicated that some isolationist types found refuge here. Could Blair be held at McAfee's place, where no one could overhear cries for help?

The radio interrupted him. "Shots fired, on a logging road off Pine Ridge Road, one mile past the Webster turnoff."

The location was only technically in Cascade; it would likely be county jurisdiction. But the cross street he and Connor had just passed was Webster. Jim grabbed the radio and reported that he and Connor were near the site and would respond. God, if it was at McAfee's place—

But the next house they passed was McAfee's, and they were still three quarters of a mile from the logging road. Jim hesitated, torn, then he shook his head. McAfee might not want to try anything at his own place. He'd go out in the woods where no one would tie a body to him. "Keep going," he urged through tight lips.

"You think it's about Sandy," Connor muttered involuntarily. It wasn't a question, and she clearly didn't expect an answer.

*****

Blair had ducked into the trees twice when he heard vehicles coming, but neither of them had been the SUV. One was a late model Taurus of a particularly bilious green, and the second time it was an old pickup truck. Both had passed before he realized he might have flagged one of them down for help. Not to say they would stop. He was filthy and caked with mud, staggering with fatigue. They might whiz right on by, pretending they hadn't even see him. Blair wouldn't even have blamed them if they had.

The road led downhill, and once or twice, a cut-out through the trees revealed a distant glimpse of Cascade, far below. The thought of walking all that way made his already shaky muscles quiver in unhappy anticipation, but he wouldn't have to walk that far. Eventually the road would open up, and there'd be a gas station or a phone booth. He just had to keep going. One foot in front of the other, ready to duck out of sight if he heard someone coming. He wouldn't let Jake and Jerry snatch him again.

The wolf/dog hadn't come back. He was positive it was a real dog, not an imaginary spirit, but it had come in such a timely manner that he couldn't help wondering. He was supposed to be a shaman, after all. If Jim, who wasn't, could see spirit animals, shouldn't Blair be able to, although he was the newest and most untried of shamans?

Maybe it had really been a spirit animal—Yeah, right, Sandburg, they all wear collars and tags—but even if it wasn't, that didn't mean he wasn't a shaman. And it didn't mean the dog hadn't really done a Lassie on his behalf. You have to keep believing that, he told himself firmly. You have to keep going.

How long had he trudged down this steep endless road? Since it was Sunday, there didn't seem to be any logging going on. Even a tree hugger like him would welcome loggers at a time like this.

He heard another car approaching and instantly put a thick tree trunk between him and the road. Pine sap smeared his sleeve, but he ignored it, pressing himself against the tree, holding his breath. He couldn't recognize the engine specifically, but it sounded like it might have been the one that had brought him here.

It didn't pass.

Oh, God, they're back. They found me. He froze.

Doors slammed. He heard voices, recognized them. Jake and a protesting Jerry.

"I saw him, I saw him," Jake yelled. "He got loose. I saw him run into the trees." A shot rang out, and the bullet thunked into the tree he was hiding behind.

"Don't shoot him," Jerry wailed. "Are you crazy? Don't shoot him."

"Are you calling me crazy?" The harsh, measured tone of Jake's voice made Blair's blood run cold. Jake was crazy, and he had a gun. Blair couldn't fight that. He was unarmed, wet, cold, shivering, spent. He couldn't outrun a bullet, not when Jake knew exactly where he was.

"I don't want any part of shooting him," Jerry shrieked.

"You're part of this, little brother. You know what happens if he's free. He gives us away, and we go to jail. That's not gonna happen."

Blair measured the width of the tree trunk with his eyes. Big enough to shield him—at least until Jake came up here after him. He couldn't keep circling the tree to keep it between him and the insane gunman, and he couldn't run because the minute he moved he'd be a clear target. 

Could he climb up the tree? Jim said people weren't as inclined to look up when they were searching for someone. Not that Blair could risk it. If Jake was positive where Blair was, he'd look up.

Blair stooped and grabbed a rock that lay at his feet. With all his strength he flung it away to the left—uphill. It made a very satisfying crashing sound. Jake yelled and fired in that direction. "He's getting away."

Blair flung himself flat on the ground and scuttled into a clump of bushes as fast as he could. Once it was between him and his pursuers, he could run, always downhill, toward Cascade. Toward safety.

Toward Jim.

"Stop it, Jake," Jerry pleaded. "Don't do this. Please. I don't want my brother to go to jail."

"You should have thought of that before. We can't let him get away. Nobody will ever find him up here. They'll never know what happened to him. We play it cool, and we're home free." He fired off two more shots in the direction in which the rock had fallen. Blair pulled himself along as silently as possible, never daring to raise his head.

The branch that snapped under his weight sounded as loud as a major explosion. Blair went utterly rigid. He even held his breath.

"That way!" Jake bellowed. "He's trying to trick us." Footsteps started toward Blair, and another bullet rattled the bushes only two feet to his left. Jake was a security guard. If he got a clear shot at Blair, he wouldn't miss.

Desperately, Blair rolled into a small alcove behind a boulder. It would stop bullets, at least until Jake found him. He wouldn't stop looking until Blair was dead.

Jim, where are you? Come and find me."

A dog barked, just once, then a furry shape lunged at Jake in a fury. Spirit guides didn't bark. It had to be a dog, not proof of Blair's shaman status. Jake let out a panicked yell and fought the dog, struggling to get the gun free.

An unfamiliar voice yelled, "Samwise." Blair just had time to wonder what The Lord of the Rings had to do with anything before a stranger materialized between two tree trunks and yelled, "Drop the gun, you're covered." It looked to Blair that the guy held a stick, not a weapon, but between that and the advent of the dog, Jake yelled even louder.

"Don't shoot my brother," screamed Jerry. "Jake, put it down."

Jake struggled with the dog—Samwise—whose teeth had clamped around his wrist, while Jerry hesitated, dithering, beside his brother. 

The guy with the stick must be the dog's owner. One heck of a smart dog.

Could Blair get the gun away from Jake now? Should he try?

The sound of a car engine approaching stopped him before he could fling himself from his meagre shelter and into the fray. It might be Bob, coming to give his allies reinforcement. It wasn't Jim's truck, anyway. Blair knew the sound of that. Still, he knew, somehow, that it was Jim, coming to the rescue. He couldn't say how he knew—maybe it really was a shaman thing, or maybe a feature of the link that existed between Sentinel and Guide. All he knew was that as the car screeched to a halt down there by the road, relief flooded his veins and arteries with the proof that he was safe.

Blair heard a car door slam, and Jim's voice bellowing his name.

"Sandburg!"

"Look out, Jim; he's got a gun," Blair screeched at the top of his lungs. He poked his head up cautiously and saw Jim charging up the slope, Sig Sauer at ready, his face hard and tight with menace. Blair had never seen a more beautiful sight.

"Drop it." Jim's voice had never sounded so cold and menacing.

"You're covered, don't try anything." Megan's voice. Jim wasn't alone.

"Ellison?" yelled the guy with the stick.

Jim's voice filled with surprise. "Farr? Did you call this in?"

"Drop the gun," Megan repeated.

Samwise growled and didn't let go of Jake's wrist. 

Blair held his breath. Would Jake shoot anyway? Was he crazy enough to try taking on two armed detectives?

In spite of the furious husky, Jake got off one shot. It rang loud in the clearing. "Jim, look out!"

Jim fired almost in the same moment. It looked like the shot hit Jake in the shoulder, but Blair couldn't tell from this angle. The gun spurted free of his grip, and Samwise released him as he fell, then stood guard over him, teeth bared. It would have taken a braver man than the wounded Jake to take him on.

"Guard, Samwise," Farr commanded, coming forward. He still held the stick, but he wouldn't need it, not with Jake.

"Are you hurt, Sandburg?" Jim yelled.

"Jake!" screeched Jerry. "Jake?" After a breathless silence, he whimpered, "I'm not armed. I don't have a gun. Let me go to my brother."

"Cover them, Connor," Jim said, and then raised his voice. "Sandburg?"

Legs shaky with exhaustion and relief, Blair staggered down the slope to meet Jim, who swooped at him, grabbed him by the shoulders, and then hugged him hard. Blair leaned into it, into the security of knowing it was all over. "Jim," he muttered, "Jim, Jim, Jim." He looked past Jim's shoulder and saw Jerry kneeling at Jake's side, his hands raised like a character in a bad western. 

The stranger, Farr, a tawny-haired man who walked with a limp, had taken the cuffs from Connor and secured Jake's wrists while she kept her weapon trained on the brothers. Jake didn't struggle, but he was muttering to himself, so he obviously wasn't dead. 

Without lowering her weapon, Megan called over her shoulder to Jim. "Is he all right?"

Jim held Blair at arms' length and looked him up and down. "Better than he will be when I'm through with him. Sandburg, what the hell were you thinking to go off alone after all we'd been through?"

"I wasn't alone. I was just between the houses," Blair defended himself. "I could see everybody. I never thought—" Jim gripped his shoulders to give him a little shake, and Blair winced at the sudden pain from his bruise.

That was all it took to snap Jim out of angry macho worried mode. "What's wrong? Where are you hurt?"

"It's only a bruise, Jim. I'm okay."

"You're soaking wet. Do you have any idea what your doctor is going to say when he sees you? Come on, Sandburg, the second we get these characters in custody, you're going straight to the ER. 

"Connor, call for backup." 

He turned to Farr. "I don't know what you were doing out here, but it looks like you were really in the right place at the right time." The two men shook hands. 

"Sandburg, this is Dave Farr. He used to be with CPD."

"Your dog saved my life," Blair told the ex-cop. "They had me half buried in the ground, and he found me. He dug me out and even bit through the ropes that tied me up. Smarter than Lassie, man. Even if he freaked us all into thinking he was a wolf."

Blair looked down at the dog, who was still alert, still on duty. It had to be retired from the canine unit. "Good boy," he said. He didn't pet the dog, not while it was on duty, but he smiled at it. "Good Samwise."

"You thought he was a wolf?" Jim's words held meaning. He must have known—after the fountain how could he not—what Blair must have thought. After a measuring look at Samwise, Jim put his hand on Blair's forehead. "I think you're feverish."

"I'm okay," Blair insisted automatically. "Maybe I'm a little feverish, but anybody would think he was a wolf, seen through the trees, in the mist. Besides, he howled instead of barking." And the others had heard him. That should have clued him in all along that his rescuer was no spirit animal. Had he simply wanted proof, validation of himself as shaman? 

Did he even need proof? Should he require it? Or should he just accept and be? He'd have to think about that one.

"This is Blair Sandburg," Jim continued his introductions as Connor handcuffed Jerry. "Civilian consultant with the department. He rides with me. And this is Megan Connor, exchange officer from Australia."

"Hi," said Connor as she straightened.

"You need a ride anywhere?" Jim asked Farr.

"No. Samwise and I were out for a walk and a little refresher training. I'd say he proved he still has it when it counts. 

"At ease," he told the dog, and Samwise bounded to his feet. He trotted over to Blair and stuck his nose against Blair's hand. 

At once Blair knelt and scratched the dog's head. "Thanks, Samwise. Living up to your name in the rescue department, man." The tail stirred energetically.

Blair rose and offered his hand to David Farr. "I'm glad you were out here today. Sure we can't run you back to your car?"

"You're going to have a full load anyway, if you're taking those characters in. I'll be fine." He turned his "weapon" into a walking stick and snapped his fingers at Samwise, who fell in at his heels. They didn't leave, though. Blair was sure they'd wait until backup got here. That was what police officers, even retired ones, were sure to do.

Megan pulled out her cell phone and called it in. Blair frowned when he heard her mention Bob. How had they known about him?

"Why did you do it, Jerry?" Blair asked his student.

Finishing her call, Megan knelt and gave her attention to Jake's wound. Jerry watched her suspiciously for a minute, then he darted one quick glance at Blair before he looked away.

"I thought it was just going to be funny, like something Dave would pull, y'know?" Jerry bowed his head, unwilling to meet Blair's eyes. "Jake dreamed it up, and he said we'd show you, that you knew so much and gloated about it." He risked one quick glance. "I never thought you gloated, Mr. Sandburg. But… but he's my brother. Then he and Bob made the fake leg covers and put eyeholes in the back of the cloak's hood so we could pull off the Kurupira thing. But I didn't know about the spear until we got to the parking lot. It was a javelin with feathers tied on so it would look like a Tupinambas weapon. We knew you were going to the exhibition's opening night. You told us in class."

"So after the spear, why did you keep on with it?" Blair asked.

"Yeah, I'd like to know that, too," Jim snarled. "Leaving him out here in the rain so soon after the drowning. Do you know what that could have done to him? Sandburg, we're taking you straight to the ER to have you checked out."

"Aw, Jim, I'm okay. I don't need to go to the ER."

"Your doctor said if you didn't take care of yourself, you would be a candidate for pneumonia. No arguing, Sandburg. You are going to the ER if I have to cuff you to get you there."

"And I'll help him," Megan put in.

Jerry's shoulders slumped. "I forgot. I didn't think about that." He hid his face in his hands. "Oh, God, oh, God. Jake?"

"He's not badly hurt," Megan reassured the shaken student. "This is a minor wound."

Jerry studied her face for a second, then he accepted her words. 

He lifted a distraught face to Blair. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sandburg. If I'd remembered, I wouldn't have let him bring you up here. I wouldn't."

"It's too late for that," Jim told him. "Your brother is going down for attempted murder, and you're an accessory. Where do we find Bob McAfee?"

"You know who Bob is?" Jerry blurted.

"We knew about all three of you before we came up here," Megan told him as she stowed away her cell phone. "We were on our way to McAfee's house when we got Mr. Farr's report of shots fired. That's how we got here so fast."

Blair heaved a deep sigh. Jim had come, he'd arrived in the nick of time, and he'd already known who he was looking for. A smile spread across Blair's face.

While they waited for the paramedics, Jim turned to Blair again. "Look at you. You're wet through. Do you have any idea how stupid that is, Sandburg? Let's get you warm right away. 

"Connor, you go crank up the heat in your car." 

She darted down to do so, then returned to guard the prisoners. Farr stood beside her, Samwise ready to go into action mode at the slightest command.

Resigning himself to the inevitable, Blair let Jim wrap an arm around his shoulders and guide him down toward Megan's car. "So how did you figure out who they were?"

"I am a detective, Sandburg. But you might want to thank a guy named Dave Hammer for pointing me in the right direction."

"Smartest guy in my class." Blair felt a surge of warmth that one of his students had had a hand in his rescue. Maybe it would make up a little for the fact that another one had done this to him. 

"Let's get you out of these wet clothes," Jim urged. He turned back. "Connor, have you got any blankets?"

"I've got a sleeping bag in the trunk," she admitted.

In spite of Megan up there with the two prisoners, Jim stripped Blair out of his jacket, shirt, tee-shirt and jeans before he wrapped the sleeping bag around him. It wasn't until the wet clothes were gone that Blair realized how utterly frozen he'd been. With a sigh of sheer relief, he let Jim bustle him into the back of the car. Jim rested a hand on his forehead, measuring him for fever. He was pretty good at judging if Blair's temperature was up even a degree or two. "Let me listen to your breathing."

Blair took a deep breath. His chest felt a little tight, and he could tell from Jim's expression that he wasn't happy. "The paramedics will look you over," he said. "Then it's down to the ER for you."

"Come on, Jim, I'll be okay. Some nice herbal tea and some of my home remedies, and I'll be fine."

"No." That snap of anger in Jim's voice stopped him short. "I am taking no chances with your life. Do you hear me? No chances. This isn't negotiable."

Wide-eyed, Blair gazed up at Jim. He wasn't warm yet; even in the sleeping bag; a few lingering shivers remained. But Jim's words warmed a place inside him that had been cold in a different way. "Okay, pax, Jim. I'll go," he promised. "But I'll be all right."

"You better be, Sandburg. You better be."

*****

Blair snuggled in the sleeping bag the whole way to the ER, with Jim in the back seat fussing over him. The fussing felt good. Just as Jim's urgent yell when he had arrived had felt good. It helped to wipe out the lingering bad feelings over Alex Barnes that Blair hadn't quite been able to put behind him. He and Jim had come to terms, but this, the obvious concern, helped to erase those stubborn remnants.

He couldn't say anything more about his initial thought that Samwise was actually his wolf spirit, not with Megan listening to every word. Although she might now know the truth about Jim's sentinel ability, Jim had fielded his wolf comment without any trouble at all. He might not want to go there yet, but suddenly Blair knew that, when he got home, he'd be able to explain his reasoning to Jim about the spirit guide. He'd gotten Samwise the ex-police dog instead of a spirit wolf, but the end result was the same. And maybe, just maybe, the wolf spirit had inspired Samwise to be all that he could be, a Lassie clone who did everything right to save Blair's life.

Blair smiled. Jim would probably say that was a crazy theory, and maybe it was. It didn't matter. Suddenly Blair knew he didn't have to have that kind of proof that the wolf spirit—and the whole shaman thing—was real. He didn't even have to talk about it. He just had to go on learning and opening himself up to the possibilities, and being here for Jim, just as Jim was there for him.

It didn't even matter that Jim had been reluctant to concede the possibility of a Kurupira curse. Jim dealt with the practical ever day. He had to, in order to focus on the realities of police work. Maybe a Sentinel/Guide pair was only allowed one fanciful dreamer. What did matter was that Jim had reacted to his danger and done something about it.

In spite of the cold and his aching bruises, Blair Sandburg felt like a million dollars.

*****

In the end, the doctor who saw Blair in the ER decided to put him on antibiotics and to keep him overnight in the hospital, simply because of the cold and exposure, to make sure there were no new complications. "I think he'll be okay," he said to a hovering Jim. "I think the worst that might come out of it is a slight cold, but so soon after the drowning incident, I want him monitored tonight."

"Do I have to?" Blair objected.

Jim rolled a steely eye at him, and Blair surrendered.

They put him in with Rafe, who was also enjoying a night's lodging at Cascade General. When Blair protested he didn't need a wheelchair when he felt perfectly fine, cough, cough, Jim put his hands on Blair's shoulders, and pushed him down into the chair and steered it into the room. That was the first time Blair or Jim had realized Rafe had been hurt.

Blair's eyes widened at the sight of him, with Brown parked in one of the visitor chairs. "Omigod, what happened to you?"

"He caught the bomber." Brown's pride in his partner rang out in his voice. "He was already down, but he got the guy anyway."

"Way to go, man," Blair praised.

"What happened to you?" Rafe countered. He had an IV in place and wore the pallor of a man who'd lost too much blood. One arm was heavily bandaged.

"I had a run-in with people who wanted to fake a curse," Blair admitted. "This is just Jim being fussy. I'm okay."

"Sandburg," Jim growled.

"Listen to him, Sandburg," Simon said from the door. "I'm glad you're all right, but you have to quit pulling these stunts of yours. I'm surprised I don't have grey hair just from today." His gaze went past Blair to include Rafe.

"I don't plan these things," Blair insisted. "You know I don't."

"Trouble magnet," Jim said instructively to Simon.

"Tell me about it."

Connor arrived right after Blair was settled, protesting, into his bed. "They picked up Bob McAfee. He admitted they chose the location for the burial because he knew that road and hiked off it sometime. He said the whole thing was Jake Otterbach's plan, and that Bob went along with it because making the fake legs was a kick. He's into movie-type make-up, does costuming for science fiction cons, and he talked about how he designed the phoney legs and the cloak to look like it was backward so he could carry off the illusion. It wouldn't have worked up close in broad daylight, but at night and out in the woods, it could have been fairly convincing. They'd made the tape recording that Jake had lowered on a cord to dangle in front of your window, Sandy. When he heard Jim, he dropped it down to the street and ran."

"What will happen to Jerry?" Blair asked.

"He was there when his brother tried to shoot you, Sandburg," Jim reminded him. "That makes him an accessory to attempted murder."

"But he tried to talk Jake out of it."

"Then he can tell it to the judge." Jim folded his arms across his chest. "Those clowns could have killed you, Sandburg. They're not getting away with it."

"McAfee will probably face a lesser charge," Simon admitted. "He wasn't there for the attempted shooting. That'll be for the courts to decide."

Blair heaved a reluctant sigh. He felt bad about Jerry, whose brother had obviously influenced him, but he saw Jim's point. You couldn't let people get away with breaking the law. The most he could do for Jerry was to testify that the student had tried to stop his brother.

"Well, people, I think we ought to let them rest," Simon observed. "It's time for dinner anyway."

"Yum, hospital food," muttered Rafe. He rolled his eyes at his partner. "I couldn't convince you to smuggle me in a pizza, H?"

Blair perked up. "Put me down for pepperoni and mushrooms."

"Is this a healthy food choice, Chief?" Jim called him on it. "You get on my case every time I have a Wonderburger."

"Come on, Jim. I need to build up my strength, and so does Rafe."

"We'll see," Jim temporized. "Come on, guys. Somewhere out there is a steak with my name on it." He gestured everybody toward the door.

Blair exchanged a commiserating glance with Rafe. "I think we're screwed, man."

"I think you're right."

*****

When the pizza arrived, it was prepared just the way Blair liked it.

*****

Blair didn't develop more than a mild case of the sniffles. On Wednesday, he was back at Rainier for his next anthro class. When he walked into the classroom, the students burst into a round of applause that made him stop dead in his tracks.

"Uh, guys…." His eyes sought out Dave Hammer. "I think this ought to be for Dave. Without him, I might not have made it." He didn't want to think about that. It hadn't happened. Dave had put Jim on the right track, Jim, who had never given up on him, not for one second.

Everybody stared at Dave, who surprised Blair by turning bright red. "I just…."

"Noticed things. Analyzed them. Put your observational abilities to good use. An anthropologist needs that. 

"You see how easy it is to create illusions. They wanted to fake the Kurupira curse. They listened and planned. All it takes is a few gullible people to buy into something like that, and the next thing you know, a superstition is born."

"Did Jerry's brother really believe in the curse?" Karen Silcott asked, gazing at Blair with adoring eyes.

"Up to a point," Blair replied. "But then we can't judge for sure. He had some mental problems. It was probably easier for him to buy into it than it would be for any of you. In a way, that made the curse a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy for him."

"So the curse could have been real?" asked timid Mary Ellis.

"Not the way you mean, Mary. The statue in itself held no power to harm anybody. The only power it had was what people gave it. If the curse had been real, I would be dead." Don't think about that, Blair. "But no one is dead, and everything that happened to me was deliberate. 

"Besides, my friend Jim figured it all out, thanks to Dave here."

"Somebody's gonna get an A," came a voice from the back row.

"Somebody might deserve one, Steve," Blair countered. "If I remember, you didn't study for the pop quiz last week."

Everybody laughed, and Steve spread his hands. "You got me, Prof."

"So, let's talk about superstition," Blair suggested, "and the cure for it. Informed knowledge. When primitive peoples didn't understand how things worked, they assigned arbitrary causes for natural phenomena." He glanced over the sea of faces and sought out Dave Hammer, who gave him a thumbs up. Dave had done what he could to counter superstition.

"That doesn't mean there are easy answers for everything," he concluded. "And it doesn't mean you should shut your eyes to wonder. But it does mean you should think, keep open minds, and not automatically assume your first guess is the right one."

"Like sentinels?" Karen asked. "The way you tested us to see if we had any heightened senses?"

"Yes," Blair said with a smile. He thought of Jim, the way he'd made a point of listening to Blair's breathing before he set off for Rainier this morning. Blair had called him a mother hen, but inside he was very glad to be mother-henned once in a while. Proof that Jim cared enough to worry about him. Just like Blair worried about Jim. "Like sentinels."


End file.
